I've been trying to get a handle on the Greek elections Sunday night and the affect it could have on the global economy (and honestly what it would mean for Obama's chances of reelection) and I caught this little tidbit at the end of a Telegraph UK article...
A Greek government must agree 77 austerity measures and sack 150,000 civil servants to get the next instalments of a €240 billion EU-IMF bail-out by the end of the summer.
Knowing that the US has lost over 600K public sector jobs since Obama has been in office (over 3.5 years), that 150K number seemed awfully high. I wondered what the population of Greece was, I expected it to be around 30M. Well, it's only 10M. Now the 150K started to sound REALLY extreme. So, because I'm a selfish American, i thought I'd put that in context for the US (being 30X larger population), that would be ... carry the two ... 4.5M PUBLIC SECTOR JOBS ELIMINATED! 4.5 MILLION. By the end of the summer.
The 600K in the US, compared to other post recession public sector employment gains, is estimated to have raised the unemployment rate a full percentage point. Imagine hiw 4.5M would taste? How can the rest the Eurozone (particularly Germany), expect Greece not to tear itself apart, and/or ever recover?
I'm just speechless. I know austerity is not the path out of a recession, and I know Greece's situation is unique (and not "just" a recession), but this just seems absolutely insane.
Full article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...
