Beware of Greeks with their hands out

Via http://twitter.com/Jake_W Mark Steyn "explains why Greece, California, and the US are going broke." "So you can’t borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don’t have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when ten grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around?" "Unfortunately, Germany is no longer an economic powerhouse. As Angela Merkel pointed out a year ago, for Germany, an Obama-sized stimulus was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. Over 30 percent of German women are childless; among German university graduates, it’s over 40 percent. And for the ever-dwindling band of young Germans who make it out of the maternity ward, there’s precious little reason to stick around. Why be the last handsome blond lederhosen-clad Aryan lad working the late shift at the beer garden in order to prop up singlehandedly entire retirement homes? And that’s before the EU decides to add the Greeks to your burdens. Germans, who retire at 67, are now expected to sustain the unsustainable 14 monthly payments per year of Greeks [yes, that's right, public sector workers receive 14 "monthly" payments a year] who retire at 58." So really, Greece (and Italy and Spain and Ireland and Portugal - the so-called PIIGS) desperately need a Margaret Thatcher to get them out of the mess they've made for themselves. Mmmmm, handsome blond lederhosen-clad Aryan lads.

Posted via email from Garth's posterous