So... Greece?

[lestatdark]

kowenicki said:

lestatdark said:

kowenicki said:
I think it's about time some of the "smaller" European nations residents woke up and realised that all the subsidies they had over recent years are now over and it's pay back time.

Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, full of lovely new airports, good highways, bloated public sectors, generous state provision, all paid for by everyone else.

Parties over, you didnt evolve your economis adequately during the subsidy years so now there is nothing to fall back on. Imaginary booms fuelled by European money all to create new markets for the larger European nations.

Now it's all gone wrong.... all so predictable.

Oh please, talking out of a panflet is so easy to do. Knowing the actual reality of the countries, now that's a pain to do right? 

I can't talk about Spain and Greece, but Portugal having new lovely airports (our main airport is 40 years old and our secondary airport was remodeled 10 years ago), good highways (only the four main highways are good, the rest are below european standards), bloated public sector (only 35% of the portuguese economy is based on the public sector), generous state provision (what generous state provision? The only ones that have it are immigrant families or ethical minorities. Everyone else is stuck on minimal state provisions, with the highest unemployement provision being 210 Eur, never going above that value and it's only valid to 2 years maximum unemployement time). Plus, we have the lowest unemployement rates and lowest public debt of the PIGS. 

Do not try to talk as if everyone is in the same boat. Portugal's economy failed because of failed government policies and complete destruction of the primary and secondary sectors (our agriculture and industry is in shambles) and we're living on a 78% import to 23% export ratio, which has been screwing up our budgets since 1992. Plus, we also have the BPN bank crisis, which gave us an aditional 4B Eur debt.

I can agree that Portugal lived too long out of European financial aids and didn't meet the requirements for a growing market, though Portugal's economy never did have the strength to compete with the larger european economies. And I also agree that we really need to do much more as a country and as an economy to be worthy of the current FMI/European aid.

But let's make this very clear. This current economical situation isn't only caused by the poor market economy of these four countries. It's also an attack to the value of the Euro market itself, a complete unregulated, uncontrolled and unverified attack by the financial institutions like Standard&Poors which is creating a vicious cycle effect, with their constant unexplained rating changes and constant interest fluctuations which are murdering any chance of recovery from these countries.

Don't take this the wrong way, I know that my country has a lot of blame in this current situation, but there's a lot more going on than just poor financial decisions made by just four countries.

Dont get me wrong... im not blaming the four countries alone... (although on my last trip to Portugal in 2009 all the roads seemed to be new.

I'm blaming the federal wishes of the Eu that brought about an unworkable single fiscal policy and single currency which was always going to falter... As i said earlier, so so so so predictable.

Thnak god we stayed out.  I wish I could revisit all of those conversdations I had with the liberals and centre left of this country who were rabid about joining the single currency.

The grand majority of our national roadway system is below standard (about 80%, with 65% of our national roadways and intercity roadways being in poor and/or dangerous conditions). We have a 28 highways, but only 5 of them are above the 50 km mark, most of them are very short (for traffic re-routing mostly). Plus, 8 of them were built in the last 6 years of Socrates government, which in this point I agree that it was a waste of public money, since most aren't actually cost efficient (due to misplacement and the later adoption of the SCUT system). 

Oh I agree with you that the wishes of the EU in bringing a single currency were misplaced, given the vast array of differences between the economies of the european countries. Simply put, countries like Portugal, Greece and most of the newly-added eastern european ones don't have the market economy to strive for the economical balance that countries like France, Germany, the UK and almost all of the northern european countries have. 

To be honest, and looking at the situation of my country only, we were much better when our economy was still based in Escudos and our country interest rates were mainly balanced according to our public FMI debt, which was the equivalent of 0,7B Eur today, which gave us a 10 year interest rate of only 2.5% and we had a globa economical growth of 1.7%. Even with the piss-poor government management since 1992, we would have been in much better shape than we are right now.