tkuanhoo wrote:European countries that went bankrupt in just the past 5 years alone ->
Greece, Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Belarus, Serbia, Moldova! Bulgaria, Portugal, Spain and Italy are looking shaky.
Why do European countries have a tendency of going bankrupt?
I gather socialism without business investments is a hugely expensive no returns economy. BTW, thanks for opening this most recent topic. The news today is that there was a massive mass protest, with some degree of violence. Some radicals set fire to a bank and killed 3 innocent workers inside while many ran about in fear and panic as the fire blazed - as if that would give them an economic uplift.
It goes to say that democracy without responsibility in serious times like this is a wild concept. When the people rise up in a mass protest, it's more akin to war than free speech. They really should have a platform for Pythogoras, Euclides, Plato and such classical Greek thinkers instead of setting failing banks on fire. Can anyone do without a bank today? Or are the Spartans returning with an alternative?
My answer to your question is that all the 'European' countries you lumped together above are not the same; instead one can differ greatly from the other. For instance, I know Greece better than the rest, It's a great country - the first impressive Olympics ever held before the one in Beijing. They had resisted their fascist general and had suffered to some extent so there evolved a rembetika culture that promotes inebriated serenading to the moonless nights when tyrants seize power and they sing for the simple life, freedom and poetry etc with their bazoukas. (You Tube)
Is it a matter of reckless spending by the governments or the uncanny ways fat cats fiddle with other people's money, or embezzle for their huge bonuses? Heard of Lehmen Brothers, Goldman Sachs and the lack of transparency - if tranparency's possible within the banking system - and investment shares companies pulling wool over investors' eyes whilst indulging in fradulent ways?
Personally , I should have had a deja vu when a minor teacher (foreign classroom assistant) confided in me that he owed the Bank of England half a million pounds in 1999. I was amazed - and asked if he was very worried. He replied, as if he's just saying 'good monring' , that he wasn't bothered at all because it was the stupidity of the bank to think his business would succeed. What business indeed! And which bank! But how did a nobody ever succeed in borrowing that amount from a bank that didn't really know anything about its customer?
I wasn't that interested then, about loans and banks; but it does strike a pertinent question today. Any good reporters around? One wishes they'll get on with the real stuff instead of messing about politiking and putting others down.
So tkuanhoo ( say, your name sounds a homophone with the venerated Lee KuanYew , or are you being satirical?) , don't worry about the rudeness of reporter and X who slighted you and name called you, I, and many others, I hope, would be interested to hear your views.
I am especially interested in posing a question for Singapore. Will she be able to get together a social welfare system - free medicine, social welfare money, care for the aged, housing for the jobless, disabled and all kinds of people who have lost out? Would it be possinle to make such charities investment businesses? Will it be better to develop a completely different model of social welfare or even, in the most extreme case, not to have any social welfare dependents at all?
Can we really have a Utopian state without materialism dominating all aspects of our life, as it looks like it's going to be?
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