TC I think that even the most pathetic toothless whore of the English sewers would be bored to CHEW your little meatgum.

ROFL

Oh my...look at all the personal attacks here? I wonder if Draungar has just hit the mute button a couple more times?

Oh...no....like Putin and hellalt, he is a hypocrite.

(yes....that was a cross-topic post....but the assholes to whom I am crossposting knew that already.)

The last thing you can call me is a hypocrite...

Top 15 countries with the most debt as a percentage of GDP.
Ireland - 1,382% (Debt, at $172.3 billion, more than 10 times the national GDP)
United Kingdom - 413.3% ($8.98 trillion)
Switzerland - 401.9% ($1.3 trillion)
Netherlands - 376.3% ($2.6 trillion)
Belgium - 335.9% ($1.3 trillion)
Denmark - 310.4% ($626 billion)
Sweden - 282.2% ($1trillion)
Finland - 271.5% ($505 billion)
Austria - 261.1% ($867 billion)
Norway - 251% ($641 billion)
Hong Kong - 250.4% ($816 billion)
France - 250% ($5.4 trillion)
Portugal - 223.6% ($552 billion)
Germany - 185.1% ($5.4 trillion)
Greece - 182.2% ($580 billion)

Greece isn't in such bad shape when you just consider their debt, but the fact that the Greeks are liars is what has them in hot water.
When the Greeks applied to join the Euro they lied about their debt.
When the Greeks reported their annual deficits to the European Union they lied for years.
Now that the scope of the Greek debt and the repeated lies from the Greeks is exposed no one will loan the Greeks money except at high interest rates.
Who can blame them.
Who wants to loan money to liars?

Lots of countries "lied about their debt". Lying has nothing to do with it. Thanks for pointing out that there is nothing particularly abnormal about Greece, "lying" or not. It's purely a speculative attack by Anglo-Saxon hedge funds.

In the US, the poorest 10%'s income is 19% of the national mean. In Sweden, it's 36%, in Japan it's 48%, Norway is 39%. (these are 2006 numbers, your "table" came from 2005).

The bottom 20% in the US make 27% of the national mean. Norway 48%, Sweden 46%, Japan 53%.

So the poor in America are a lot poorer than in the European countries, and that's not even considering the fact that in Europe a lot of services Americans pay through the nose for are provided at low cost or no cost.

I had to look this up on Wikipedia, but those stats look like external debt rather than public debt. Normally when I see discussion of Greece's financial woes it is in relation to public debt. Which stat is more relevant when considering the future of their membership of the EU? I though it was public debt (Government debt).

As usual you are correct Spyman.
I got the stats from a story at Canada.com
http://www.canada.com/business/Gallery+Countries+with+most+debt/5447642/story.html

It is a matter of opinion, but external debt seems more important to me because you can monetize public debt, while you can only depreciate external debt if I'm not mistaken, but sovereign debt is not a strong suit of mine.

I am no economist, but I *think* when we are talking about austerity measures and issues with tax revenue, public debt is key. The stats cited by Wikipedia list Greece as having the 5th highest ratio of debt to GDP in the word,and the highest in Europe. Interestingly Japan has the highest by some margin. That surprised me.
By the way I am not arguing that external debt is less significant for the future of an economy. And I just googled the subject then and there were plenty of articles discussing Greece's external debt crisis - so there must be an issue there too, even if many countries seem to have more external debt than Greece (like Ireland - staggering levels of debt).

This article for example says that external debt is actually the main issue on Greece:
http://www.thetrader.se/2011/05/27/privatizing-greece-not-the-solution/
So you might be right TC, maybe external debt is more important.

Typo... main issue *for Greece

Spyman, thanks for the link. The essay made a point that to do anything with any of its debt now Greece needs money from external sources. The external creditors don't want to sink more money into a dry hole so to speak unless they get guarantees on their present outstanding debt.
This is why I think Greece is dead. They got caught in too many bald-faced lies red-handed.
Did you see the external debt of Ireland? Unbelievable.
I think the Euro is dead and made a bet that way by investing a bit in German Government Bonds.
The Germans will never default and if the Euro fails and each independent country has to go back to their private currency then German bonds will be denominated in German Marks which would be more valuable than the Euro.

Putin, I had to burst yiour big socialist Bubble, but Europeans do indeed pay for their services thru their high taxes. Nothing is free or at 'no cost' as you said.

Now, I also find that the lack of access to our own healthcare system is insane, but I blame that on Insurance companies more than anything, which leads to Lobby groups, which leans to ....

You get the general idea. We pay too much, because nobody will lay down the law, and institute some genuine TARP reform.

European debt fueled German export expansion. German banks lent Europe money, Europe bought German goods, Germany expanded. The debate is now framed "the lazy Greeks borrowed too much, why should we pay?" Red herring. Take another pinch o' tobaccy and chew on this:

The Germans won't ever let the euro fail, no way, and you are delusional if you think otherwise. They are absolutely dependent on it for easy intra-european export, their goods enter all these markets just like selling Texan goods to Oklahoma: no duties, no commerce taxes, no currency exchange barriers, Euroland-wide. It is still rather costly to sell outside Euroland, even within the EU and OECD. Don't think the Germans will pay for servicing Greek debt? Just watch.

if euro fails everyone is doomed...EU will fall apart....
and dont be dilusional to think that a war after EU's destruction is far away.....
EU 'made' france-germany 'allies'

Really? Germany/France at war again? Think so? I dont think that same nationalism exists in either country first of all, second, when the finger pointing starts, it wont be other Europeans who get the first 'looksie' it will be the millions of non European Immigrants who get blamed first. Promise.

Eu falls, so do jobs, and then those jobs and social programs those immigrants have, will QUICKLY become a rallying call as to 'why the Euro failed' Wether true or not is unimportant, it WILL happen. Watch how quickly the Europeans all get caught up in THAT.

@Tettleton
Could you please include a reference for your debt as % of GDP list. I think you dont have a "public debt" list, but some other debt list. Public debt is the debt of the government. This doesnt include the debt of individuals in a country. An example of a public debt list would be:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_public_debt

I think this is the debt list relevant to your argument.

An external debt list, all debt of the government and individuals to other countries could be:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt

That is a completely different list yet again.. So what kind of debt is on your list? And are you sure its economically relevant to the point you are trying to make?

Also, please note that a debt figure is quite meaningless in my opnion if you dont include possesions, certainly if you regard individuals or companies.

And of course, as mentioned here already, some countries dont publish reliable statistics.

cheers.

My bad.. somebody already made that point, I gotta finish reading a thread first before posting :p

I do stand by my debt vs possesion remark though.

"Putin, I had to burst yiour big socialist Bubble, but Europeans do indeed pay for their services thru their high taxes. Nothing is free or at 'no cost' as you said. "

Right, thanks for that TANSTAAFL cliche. The point is, is the cost of healthcare and other services than the average citizen pays in the United States higher than the taxes paid by average citizens in Europe? Especially when you incorporate things like preventive care and how much that could save if uninsured people had greater access to preventive checkups in the US. Or are you going to insist that the out of pocket healthcare costs for the uninsured in the US are less than the tax bills low income Swedes and Norwegians pay? Because I'd like to see evidence of that. If you can't provide evidence, then spare me the misleading libertarian cliches.

There is no lack of access to medical care in the United States. Anyone in the country can walk into any emergency room and receive treatment.
It's nice to wake up and expose a lie.

It's funny how Europeans immediately want to change the subject from GREEK DEBT to something else, anything else! LOL!

Yeah you keep saying that, I wonder how ER treatment helps uninsured people with cancer. And of course the uninsured can just go to the ER for a preventive checkup, right?

Anyway why do you brag about ER care, isn't that socialism? Not only is it socialism it's inefficient since we could lower costs if we bothered to provide access to doctors prior to people getting sick.

The government deficit for 2003, which was initially reported at 1.7% of GDP, stood at 4.6% of GDP after the September 2004 notification. The deficits notified to the Commission for 2000, 2001 and 2002 were also revised upwards by more than two percentage points of GDP. Such substantial increases resulted from earlier actions undertaken by Eurostat as well as initiative taken by the incoming Greek government in spring 2004 to launch a thorough fiscal audit. Data revisions of such a scale have given rise to questions about the reliability of the Greek statistics on public finances.

Greece had to increase its annual deficits by over 100%
2000 2.0% increased to 4.1% (of GDP)
2001 1.4% increased to 3.7%
2002 1.4% increased to 3.7%
2003 1.7% increased to 4.6%

So during its first years in the monetary union the Greek government consistently lied to its fellow members and cuts is annual deficit in official reports by 50-75%.

Can anyone trust the Greek government?

You keep repeating the same shit. Are you a machine? Italy lied to a greater extent. Shut up.

@Stressedlines
if EU falls, not the eurozone only, everything collapses...
i didnt say that a war is certain....i said that although is higly unlikely to happen, its not impossible.dont forget that the same arrogance characterized the diplomacy right after the fall of Napoleon, the italian and german consolidation...
i dont say that a WWIII is coming....but a war IF EU falls, is in the cards

and if everybody starts accusing non-European immigrants that's a nice way to start accusing everyone else.


and @TC everyone gave bad statistics...even france and germany had problems with european commission.(not for stats but for some other reasons)
and keep in mind that all countries in eu dont have the same way to calculate this numbers..(this happens because we dont have a common minestry of finace)....so these old stats are not lying...they dont calculate something that the revised stats do

Insane, I am just pointing out basic human emotion here.

They WILL do it.

And Certainly WW3 is in the cards, but I 100% expect the anti immigration backlash will come first, and once they figureout THAT did not help, then they will start looking across borders.

I

The only thing that fails are the socialist models in the Eurozone.
Europe will be better off if the Euro fails.
The artificiality the Euro supplied to the debt ridden countries will disappear.
Say hello to the German-Polish economic dominance of the continent.
France-Spain-Portugal-Italy-Greece-Ireland are going to see economic collapse and widespread immigration out of those countries.
No problem for North America.
North American trade with Asia surpassed that with Europe twenty years ago.
South America will take up the slack that the depression in France and Southern Europe brings.
When will Europeans realize their model of massive public debt, heavy taxation, and unsustainable cradle-to-grave socialism is unsustainable? When their economies collapse I guess.