Greece – In Great Depression PM says

Greece is in a “Great Depression” similar to the American one in the 1930s, the country’s Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told former U.S. President Bill Clinton on Sunday.

Samaras was speaking two days before a team of Greece’s international lenders arrive in Athens to push for further cuts needed for the debt-laden country to qualify for further rescue payments and avoid a chaotic default.

Athens wants to soften the terms of a 130-billion euro bailout agreed last March with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, to soften their impact on an economy going through its worst post-war recession.

By the end of this year Greek GDP is expected to have shrunk by about a fifth in five consecutive years of recession since 2008, hammered by tax hikes, spending cuts and wage reductions required by two EU/IMF bailouts. Unemployment climbed to a record 22.6 percent in the first quarter.

“You had the Great Depression in the United States,” Samaras told Clinton, who was visiting Greece as part of a delegation of Greek-American businessmen. “This is exactly what we’re going through in Greece – it’s our version of the Great Depression.”

Athens must reduce its budget deficit below 3 percent of GDP by the end of 2014, from 9.3 percent of GDP in 2011 – requiring almost another 12 billion euros in cuts and higher taxes on top of the 17 billion successive governments have cut from the budget shortfall…

via Greece now in Great Depression, PM says | Reuters.

Related articles

Europe – Unemployment – A tragic past

Just like in the 1930s, when the Great Depression caused youth unemployment to hit the 50% levels in Germany, the current financial crisis is wreaking havoc on young people. Young people are always hardest hit due to their lack of work experience. This is now accentuated as the youngster from Athens competes directly against the … Continue reading »

Depression-era seniors experience – How will the attitudes of today’s young adults be affected

For the fifth consecutive year, newly minted college graduates face a weak labor market and a painfully slow recovery. Many young adults who have found work are languishing in low-paying, no-benefit jobs that don’t require degrees. Some still live with their parents and are saddled with debt, delaying full-fledged adulthood indefinitely. The Depression’s impact on … Continue reading »

Job Market Recovery – Great Recession vs Great Depression

( By Bill McBride) – The causes of the Great Recession were similar to the Great Depression – as opposed to most post war recessions that were caused by Fed tightening to slow inflation – and I’m frequently asked if we could compare the percent job losses during the two periods. Unfortunately there is very little data … Continue reading »

Youth Unemployment in EU – The crisis has caused a significant increase, but rates vary widely

“There are many reasons for youth unemployment: besides the general situation on the labour market, one might mention education and training systems, labour market and employment policies, but also the stratification and distribution of opportunities in society” write  JOERG BERGSTERMANN AND BJOERN HACKER in  Youth Unemployment in Europe on social-europe.eu. As things stand at the moment, the … Continue reading »

Official youth unemployment – The Scariest Chart

In March this year, for the first time on record, more than half of the young people in Spain and Greece were counted as unemployed by the OECD, which provided the chart above. Three months later, the situation is still getting worse. Official youth unemployment in Greece and Spain has crossed 51 percent. That’s worse … Continue reading »

Crazy Statistics about The European Crisis

doesntevenmakesense.com has gathered the following statistics about the European economic crisis that are ‘almost too crazy to believe….’ Greece #1 The Greek economy shrank by 6 percent during 2011, and it has been shrinking for five years in a row. #2 The average unemployment rate in Greece in 2010 was 12.5 percent.  During 2011, the average unemployment rate was 17.3 …Continue reading »

Europe – Regional unemployment rates – From 2.5% in Salzburg and Tirol to 30.4% in Andalucia

Regional unemployment rates varied widely across the 271 NUTS 2 regions of the EU27 in 2011, with the lowest rates recorded in the regions of Tirol and Salzburg (both 2.5%) in Austria, Zeeland (2.7%) in the Netherlands and Oberbayern (2.8%),  Niederbayern (2.9%) and  Freiburg (3.0%) in Germany, while the highest rates were registered in the regions of  Andalucía (30.4%) and …Continue reading »

Job Gap | Europe’s army of ‘underemployed’ nearly 25 million plus 9 million underemployed

Almost nine million people in the European Union were considered “underemployed” in 2011, according to new Eurostat figures. These numbers add to the growing ranks of nearly 25 million unemployed in the EU, highlighting a ticking social time-bomb. Some 42 million workers in the EU were employed part-time in 2011, according to a survey by … Continue reading »

Europe suffocates in unemployment – The Pravda

In early 2012, many analysts were predicting the imminent resumption of the recession in Europe. Against the backdrop of the worsening debt problems of Greece and Spain, the economic performance indicators in the EU for the first quarter were not the best. Now, the united Europe is threatened by a new attack: unemployment growth does … Continue reading »

Federal Government Can Restore Full Employment – If Only it Wanted to Do So

‘Three years after our worst recession since the Great Depression officially ended, the U.S. economy is still very weak’ writes Mark Weisbrot. The people most hurt by this weakness are the unemployed and the poor, and of course the two problems are related. We have about 23 million people who are unemployed, involuntarily working part-time, or have … Continue reading »

Mass Involontary Unemployment

There is some agreement among macroeconomists that the persistently high unemployment in the late 1970s and beyond was consistent with the economists concept of involuntary unemployment. Involuntary unemployment is a fundamental concept in macroeconomics and indicates that individuals are constrained by the systemic failure of the economy to provide enough jobs and have little power … Continue reading »