As a Greek, a) lots of people lost their jobs during the crisis, could barely make ends meet or even committed suicide; those people certainly didn't fill the taverns. B) It is true that Greeks won't cut on food/going out as readily as others.
People in Greece certainly don't prioritize happiness instead of making money. There was a clear shift where Greeks became more and more unhappy after the (still ongoing) crisis. No1 problem is financial insecurity; as a resident (MD) I work 70-80hrs/week, for less than 7€/hour. Prices are comparable with rich EU countries.
Thanks for giving perspective from an unprivileged position. I have similar stories where people with money create national traditions of being together to celebrate festivals, family events together with friends and families and in general prioritize family over jobs. Poor people seems to have no such traditions they will stay put in whichever town/city they are stuck in their low paying jobs.
> If the treatment is expensive, then only net-productive individuals would be able to afford it, meaning we would gain the benefit of contributors contributing for longer, without net-recipients receiving for longer.
Because rich people are "net-productive" and poor people are "net-recipients"?
This is wrong on so many levels. And even today rich people live on average longer. Can't see the benefit myself.
Having money is a sign of being able to extract wealth from the current economic system.
I know many productive people who never learnt that hard work doesn't equal good money.
> Because rich people are "net-productive" and poor people are "net-recipients"
Yes, in the context at hand this is obviously, objectively true. Poor folks earn little, "pay" negative income taxes, and are eligible for lavish (relative to their contributions) benefits, thus they pay less in taxes than they receive in benefits, making them net recipients from social programs. Some to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per year. We used to call them leeches--we should probably start doing it again, frankly.
Meanwhile others pay large amounts of taxes without receiving any services beyond those which are forced on them by the state (which are generally a raw deal), making them massive net contributors.
It's not "wrong", it's the basic arithmetic that undergirds your beloved welfare state. Ignore it at your peril.
Again you are extremely wrong on this. However it is clear that you hold such misanthropic views that I won't be able to make you even slightly consider a perspective based on the value of equality and human dignity.
I don't think you're right. I won't pretend to be an expert on any of this, but as a speaker of modern Greek I can confidently say that λαβύρινθος (labyrinth) is the only word in Greek to describe both your definition of a labyrinth and a maze.
For example, this Wikipedia article[1] on labyrinth in Greek, which has the picture [2] of a maze and calls it a labyrinth.
> We are the world champions of strikes and yet, somehow, doctors rarely go on strike. I do not know why.
When talking about public healthcare, strikes mean little. State won't care unless the strike is massive enough to attract media attention. Hospitals can't close down, a "safe" minimum of workers must care for patients so not a big problem for the state generally.
Except if that safe minimum is on strike as well. It takes a coordinated effort, sure, but we have role models such as the train conductors or other champions of strikes
Autark comes from ancient greek αυτάρκης (same in modern greek) which is made up from two words αυτός (he) & αρκώ (v) which means suffice, so self-sufficient.
I wasn't aware that this word existed in English but I love coming across words like these that I am not aware of, though immediately understand.
Oh yes, and when support ends it's practically impossible to use a phone.
I've never understood people talking about "support", still rocking a 7 year old phone (have changed the battery) with fairly recent lineageos. Only really use floss apps though and don't browse weird sites.
I use a computer for serious stuff.
If you really cared about waste you could a) not buy a phone with limited support if for some mystical reason you care for that or b) find ways to use the phone without support.
Let me get this straight. You're asking what's stopping people from walking everywhere?
And instead of thinking for like 5 seconds and realizing someone may work 15km away from home you write a senseless comment about people driving to the grocery store and concluding that what's stopping people from walking everywhere is that they're lazy.
Not everywhere. That is a very deliberate decision on my part. I have picked jobs which support it, moved where I rent based on it, and made it important. Not for the environment either, but for me.
If you want to work 15km from your home and can't bike/public transport to work and don't have the ~2 hours to walk (which I am not suggesting would be common) then you could do whatever makes sense to you. I have been finding work from home positions since 2015 without issue.
The comment about the grocery store is different than what you think. The problem is that people complain about carbon while doing nothing to solve it. In my scenario it is a 15min walk to the store. I carry two reusable bags and sometimes a backpack for bulkier items. The area is on the outskirts and the sidewalk is limited to one side of the road. Having walked to the grocery store some 500 times in the last ~2 years, I have met an astonishingly low amount of people doing the same. My neighborhood has two public schools and a highschool, to give you an idea of size.
These same people drive to the centralized park and convenience stores. It is a nice area with 80% NDP voters.
I collect groceries for 4 people and make all my meals from ~scratch (very limited canned food). We don't use the cities garbage services, everything is recyclable or compostable.
I'm not really suggesting anyone should walk everywhere, just that driving everywhere isnt helping the problem they claim to care about.
Not so in Greece. Salaries are way lower than 3,5-4k per month. Doctors, for example, in public hospitals get around 2k per month and the consultants maybe around 2,5-3k.
I believe that when ricardobayes said "anyone with 3-4 years of experience" they really meant "anyone in our industry". In my part of Eastern Europe, 2.5k EUR is a very good salary, but software devs earn way more.
> President Donald Trump repeated a highly misleading claim on Friday that Germany will soon depend on Russia for 50 percent to 70 percent of its energy needs.
Then the article spends significant time pointing out that Russian natural gas plays only a small part in Germany's total demands in energy, citing numbers like 20% & 13% and thus Trump's claim is am exaggeration.
And then goes on to say:
> To be sure, Russia also accounted for about 40 percent of Germany's crude oil imports and 30 percent of its foreign coal supplies in 2016, according to IEA. But that hardly makes it an outlier in Europe.
How is that glossed over? Is it just me or - I hate to say it - Trump actually had a point?
He has been shown to have been correct on this. I think he was also correct to ask Europe to fund NATO on their own. As USA taxpayer, I don't want to pay for it. Europeans know where they live and their history.
This is a bit tricky and I don't think many consider it. One of the leading theories for peace in Europe is the lack of militarization in Europe. Countries with standing armies are more likely to go to war with one another. So we got the rise of superpowers and where better to place that superpower than across an ocean and in an area with few contested borders and not thousands of years of history of fighting? I mean it seems the other approach is akin to what China did. Just be successful in conquering the region.
Obviously this point is _highly_ debatable but it is worth consideration. And it is not like the US hasn't benefited from the military industrial complex. Though I do think the funding structure could be reworked or we at least acknowledge that this is what is happening.
we dont want nato it was pushed on us. no one ever voted for being a tool in the us armada. you know the usa that would definitly go crazy if russia or china had weapons in mexico but see no problem of doing the same. one day u will understand that american people live well because their number one investment is their army and nato
I tend to think that Trump is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Now thinking about people/politicians that laugh him off when they were warned about energy dependence on Russia... they must be dumb AF or bribed by Putin or both.
EU/Germany energy politics were/are a trainwreck and that was obvious for at least a decade. Instead of recognizing the obvious warning in 2014, most of the continent doubled down on Russia energy dependency.
As a citizen of EU county - this is depressing. Most of our political elite should be locked up somewhere and keys tossed away. They are directly responsible for the clusterf*ck that follows.
> Is it just me or - I hate to say it - Trump actually had a point?
I'm not sure why people are afraid to say this. He has literally said everything under the sun. You throw enough darts and you're bound to eventually hit the board. Supporters just focus on the hits and don't pay attention to the misses, but this isn't different from any populist (I mean look at Musk. If you keep predicting that autopilot is a year away you'll eventually be right and that's all we'll ever remember)
People in Greece certainly don't prioritize happiness instead of making money. There was a clear shift where Greeks became more and more unhappy after the (still ongoing) crisis. No1 problem is financial insecurity; as a resident (MD) I work 70-80hrs/week, for less than 7€/hour. Prices are comparable with rich EU countries.