Word: gdp
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...Under pressure from the European Union, the Greek government has outlined a series of public-sector wage cuts and tax increases that are intended to help slash the deficit from the current 12.7% of GDP to the E.U. limit of 3% by 2012. While the impact of the new measures has yet to be felt, the delayed effects of the broader economic crisis are beginning to bite. The country slipped into recession last year and is now facing its worst economic contraction since 1987 - the last time Greece was forced to implement austerity measures following a previous round of government...
...That entire country has no sense of responsibility, and now we're supposed to fix it," says Karen Schumann, 27, a Berlin media consultant. The complaint has a familiar ring to it. Greece has a staggering budget deficit of 12.7% of GDP and a $410 billion public debt, which free-spending Greek officials long kept secret from the rest of the euro zone. Now that Greece is on the verge of defaulting, its monetary partners will have to hand over huge loans to help keep the country solvent - all in order to prevent the euro from going into a free...
Widespread evasion feeds the Greek attitude that only the stupid pay taxes. Little wonder that Greece's tax revenue is among the lowest in the European Union, 19.8% of GDP (excluding social security) compared to an E.U. average of 26.1%. (Italy's take is 29.1%, Portugal's 24.5%, Spain's 20.7%). Only a handful of E.U. countries - the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania - do worse. And none of them use the euro. (Read: "Is the Euro the New Dollar...
Shortly after Papandreou took office in October, his socialist government revealed that Greece's finances were in far worse shape than the previous government had let on. The 2009 deficit was nearly 13% of GDP, more than four times the euro zone's 3% limit. The European Commission blasted Greece for the faulty stats, and ratings agencies downgraded Greek debt, sending yields on government bonds skyrocketing. Over the past two months, as fears have grown that Greece's poisonous finances could infect the rest of Europe, the euro has slipped by almost 7% against the dollar. The Greek crisis...
...while 658 sounds like a lot of sales for an album by someone who can't sing, it is nevertheless a dangerous sign for our economy. You can chart GDP or housing starts, but I can't, so the way I know we are in deep trouble is when celebrities can't persuade us to buy their crap. In the America I grew up in, we order perfume by the quart just because it's made by Ernest Borgnine's fifth wife. We are almost as eager to buy stuff from celebrities as Borgnine is to get married...