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Go Greek for a week channel 4

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    Go Greek for a week channel 4

    Anyone catch this last night?

    Bus drivers earning 56k, Doctor declaring < 10k to evade tax, and people retiring at 50!

    Surely Channel 4 must have been over exaggerating it?

    #2
    Originally posted by amoeba View Post
    Anyone catch this last night?

    Bus drivers earning 56k, Doctor declaring < 10k to evade tax, and people retiring at 50!

    Surely Channel 4 must have been over exaggerating it?

    Yep, I caught that. It felt like a commentary on how Labour wrecked our country by bingeing on cheap borrowing and spent it all on public sector salaries and pensions. In fact they could have done the programme in UK and just substituted Greek government with Labour, sorted.
    Vote Corbyn ! Save this country !

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      #3
      Originally posted by amoeba View Post
      Anyone catch this last night?

      Bus drivers earning 56k, Doctor declaring < 10k to evade tax, and people retiring at 50!

      Surely Channel 4 must have been over exaggerating it?
      Not an exagerration, just a misunderstanding on your part. The programme drew a comparison between what a UK bus driver, earning UK wages would get if they were entitled to the same 'bonuses' as a Greek bus driver. It was a deliberate conceit and typical of the mainstream medias attempts to blame Europe's woes on the lazy, bone idle, tax dodging Greeks.

      I'm amazed people fall for it.

      No mention of the fact that the UK is running a very similar budget defecit to Greece and that corruption and pilfering from the state is no more endemic there than it is here. The difference between us and Greece is that we don't need to renew our borrowing for a couple of years yet, but when we do, the UKs current strategy of defaulting on exisiting debts will not serve us well.

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        #4
        Originally posted by fullyautomatix View Post
        Yep, I caught that. It felt like a commentary on how Labour wrecked our country by bingeing on cheap borrowing and spent it all on public sector salaries and pensions. In fact they could have done the programme in UK and just substituted Greek government with Labour, sorted.
        A bit unfair, AFAIK hairdressers and bakers weren't allowed to retire at 53 on 90% of their salary under any previous UK government.
        Science isn't about why, it's about why not. You ask: why is so much of our science dangerous? I say: why not marry safe science if you love it so much. In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won't hit you in the butt on the way out, because you are fired. - Cave Johnson

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          #5
          Greece's real problem was vote buying - which happens in every country. though perhaps not quite to the massive extent in Greece. The black economy and fraud are pretty good sized in the UK as well - take a look at tax credits. There are many parallels between Greece and the UK, the difference being that Greece was borrowing on the cheap through the Euro and just thought it would go on forever. I've no sympathy for the banks.
          McCoy: "Medical men are trained in logic."
          Spock: "Trained? Judging from you, I would have guessed it was trial and error."

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by bingobob View Post
            Not an exagerration, just a misunderstanding on your part. The programme drew a comparison between what a UK bus driver, earning UK wages would get if they were entitled to the same 'bonuses' as a Greek bus driver. It was a deliberate conceit and typical of the mainstream medias attempts to blame Europe's woes on the lazy, bone idle, tax dodging Greeks.

            I'm amazed people fall for it.
            It doesn't surprise me at all that people fall for it. Decades of substandard education, dumbed down 'meejah' and so on have contributed, but actually it's always been the case throughout human history that many people just want simple 'home truths' that actually have very little to do with the truth. They like to be told 'you good, they bad', they like to be told that they're not to blame for their problems, but somebody else, Greek, the EU, dark skinned people, muslims, immigrants, benefit 'scroungers', Jews, Catholics, Protestants, 'the rich' and the list goes on.

            It's at the root of all political extremism, in fact, fascism and communism and all their disgusting variants all boil down to one simple sentence; 'blame somebody else'.

            I've come to the conclusion that it's really quite easy to 'keep the people stupid' because most people actually want to be stupid; it's so much easier than researching the facts and circumstances and coming to some understanding of complex situations.
            And what exactly is wrong with an "ad hominem" argument? Dodgy Agent, 16-5-2014

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by Mich the Tester View Post
              I've come to the conclusion that it's really quite easy to 'keep the people stupid' because most people actually want to be stupid; it's so much easier than researching the facts and circumstances and coming to some understanding of complex situations.
              Actually psychologists will tell you that humans are biologically wired to find patterns in things.
              Unfortunately the patterns they construct to make sense of data are usually wrong and most don't have the training to work out the truth.
              Also thinking is hard work to most people, so they'd rather just look at "evidence" that confirms their initial "pattern-forming" hypothesis and ignore any evidence that contradicts it.
              Hard Brexit now!
              #prayfornodeal

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by sasguru View Post
                Actually psychologists will tell you that humans are biologically wired to find patterns in things.
                Unfortunately the patterns they construct to make sense of data are usually wrong and most don't have the training to work out the truth.
                Also thinking is hard work to most people, so they'd rather just look at "evidence" that confirms their initial "pattern-forming" hypothesis and ignore any evidence that contradicts it.
                It might help if people were to study this book at school.
                And what exactly is wrong with an "ad hominem" argument? Dodgy Agent, 16-5-2014

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                  #9
                  My wife is Greek and she was annoyed by the portrayal of Greece in this show, however she recognized there were some truth to certain parts. It would have been much better if there was a serious documentary produced about the reasons for Greece's difficulties for those who still don't get it (by Panorama for example, maybe there has been?).

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by russell View Post
                    My wife is Greek and she was annoyed by the portrayal of Greece in this show, however she recognized there were some truth to certain parts. It would have been much better if there was a serious documentary produced about the reasons for Greece's difficulties for those who still don't get it (by Panorama for example, maybe there has been?).

                    Nurse ! Pass him his meds.
                    Vote Corbyn ! Save this country !

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