This is what happens when a socialist culture of entitlement runs out of other people’s money.
Hat Tip to Gateway Pundit.
Deadly riots over new austerity measures engulfed the streets of Athens on Wednesday, and three people were killed as angry protesters tried to storm parliament, hurled Molotov cocktails at police and torched buildings.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets as part of nationwide strikes to protest new taxes and government spending cuts demanded by the International Monetary Fund and other European nations before heavily indebted Greece gets a euro110 billion ($141 billion) bailout package of loans to keep it from defaulting.
Three people died after being trapped in a burning bank along the main demonstration route in central Athens—the first deaths during a protest in Greece since 1991, when four people trapped in a burning office building were killed. Another five were rescued.
“A demonstration is one thing and murder is quite another,” Prime Minister George Papandreou thundered in Parliament during a session to discuss the spending cuts he announced Sunday. Lawmakers held a minute of silence for the dead.
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/05/rioting-union-workers-strike-kill-three-bank-tellers-in-greece-video/
Here’s a glimpse of where the money went:
The Greek crisis exposes hard truths which the cultural elite have refused to discuss, yet which could destroy not just the European Union, but challenge multiculturalism within each EU nation, too.
First, the background.
The European Union is now forced to bail out Greece, a near-bankrupt EU member, with a massive $170 billion bailout.
This means voters of hard-working, rort-resisting, tax-paying and prudent cultures like Germany will wonder why they must subisides cultures which breed the nepotism, welfarism, tax-dodging and manana economics that has led directly to the Greek collapse.
Examples from Greece’s extraordinary record of waste:
Tens of thousands of unmarried or divorced daughters of civil servants collect their dead parents’ pensions, weighing on a social security system experts say will collapse in 15 years unless it is overhauled….
While the law protects civil servants from dismissal, it allows them to retire with a pension in their 40s.
Greek pension spending is expected to rise by 12 percent of gross domestic product by 2050, according to EU Commission data. That compares with an EU average of less than 3 percent of GDP…
Labour unions foiled government attempts to sell debt-ridden Olympic Airways for decades, costing Greek taxpayers millions while employees enjoyed generous benefits—their family members could fly around the world for free… Olympic was sold in 2008, but only after the state lavishly compensated or re-hired about 4,600 employees…
The state owns 74 companies, mainly utilities and transport firms, many of which are overstaffed and loss-making, the OECD says…
Hundreds of state-appointed committees employ staff though it is not clear what they all do. Greece has a committee to manage Lake Kopais, which dried out in the 1930s…
But nearly 80 percent of Defence Ministry spending goes on administrative costs and payments of army staff.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/germans_must_pay_for_greek_loafers_and_cheats/
The economic crisis in Greece was all brought about by its fiscal irresponsibility and stupidity. Their government promised an endless well of ridiculous entitlements, but was forced to cut back when economic reality set in. Out-of-control spending, unsustainable debt, insurmountable deficit, the bleeding of taxpayers. Sound familiar? It’s happening here.