Greek Island Samos – Votsalakia

Words about the financial crisis in Greece from around the world.

Right now, the political and the financial situation in Greece are not promising a bright future for Greece. Here is a collection of what the world is thinking of the situation in Greece at the moment.

German Chancellor Mrs. Angela Merkel told Greece yesterday to fix its fiscal problems and added that due to the Greek crisis the common Euro currency was facing its worst test ever.

Greek Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou is due in Berlin this Friday to meet with Merkel. She spoke after days of friction, played out between the Greek and German media, over whose responsibility it is to act.

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Like in ancient times, Greece has once more become an example for the world today.

Editorial writer and columnist Anne Appelbaum, of the Washington Post analyzes the situation:

“I have seen America’s future, and it is Greece. By this I do not mean that the Midwest will soon be covered with ancient ruins or that Texans will swap hamburgers for feta cheese. I mean that the ongoing Greek financial crisis is the kind of crisis the United States might face in a few years, if we continue to make the kinds of mistakes that the Greeks have made over the past decade.” And she goes on: “Some of Greece’s economic problems are highly specific. The country has an unusually old-fashioned legal system, a bureaucracy straight out of a Kafka novel and a byzantine system of regulation”

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Takis Michas from the Wall Street Journal describes the financial situation in a nutshell:

“In Greece, as elsewhere, if the management of a company reports misleading figures about the company’s financial situation in order to boost the price of the shares or to support the sale of securities, it risks criminal charges. Around the world, including in Greece, this is securities fraud. But in Greece, unlike elsewhere, if those responsible for the deception are members of a (previous) government and if the victims are “foreigners” (“xenoi,” in Greek) they run no such risk. The most they can expect is slap on the wrist and a mild – Please don’t do it again!”

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Gevin Hewitt of BBC states on his blog:

“Key advisers in Athens believe that you can’t buck the markets, and that Greece needs to show it is backed up by a pool of money.

The markets are already factoring in that there will be a bail-out or rescue. Intense discussions are going on involving European officials. They include Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the Euro Group and Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank. European finance ministers were holding emergency talks.”

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It’s scary what is going on at the moment and there have already been rumors that Greece will have Drachmas again…

Athens goes up in Flames again

By Maria Margaronis:

It all begun with the death of a 15 year old child, a school-boy with a chubby face, long brown curly hair and a black punk-rock T-shirt, an ordinary teenager trying to be cool. Though he was privately educated in a wealthy Athens suburb, Alexis Grigoropoulos didn’t hang out at the mall. On Saturday night he was downtown in ungentrified Exarcheia, a neighborhood where the indy crowd collects in cafes, leftists and anarchists and music lovers, potheads and addicts and professors, dissenters and the young, and the object in recent years of an intensive cleanup operation. The police account of the events that led to Alexis’s death had the patrol car set upon by a crowd of stone-throwing youths and the boy himself wielding a petrol bomb. But eyewitness reports and videos shot on mobile phones tell a quite different story.

Alexis and his friends were out to celebrate a name-day. Some unknown people passed and threw small objects at the car; the officers stopped, walked back to Alexis’s group and began to curse and threaten them. According to one of the boys, Alexis tossed an empty plastic bottle. The officer aimed and fired three shots, two in the air and one that pierced his chest.

Read the rest…

How do I plan a family vacation in a recession? What type of travel plans can I make if I’m on a budget? Can I still have a nice luxury feel to my vacation without shelling out a fortune?

The answers to those questions will mostly be answered with three words…luxury travel clubs.

People will always say that taking a pleasant getaway in a terrible economy could not be done. And to some degree these people are accurate. Unless you know how to travel in a terrible economy, you may be putting your family and yourself in financial jeopardy, especially if you buy into timeshares.

The way people now vacation has changed, which is why families are finding more alternate ways to afford their beloved yearly family vacation. Travel clubs, which have been around for a long time, are getting more attention now due to its affordability over timeshares. And the attention couldn’t have come at a better time.

There has been a lot of talk of how the economy is affecting some of the things folks like to do, like eat out, go to the movies and….travel. Although you’re probably prioritizing what’s vital to you based upon your budget, a vacation is just one of those things you look forward to doing year after year.

Whether you want to de-stress or build a closer bond with your family, a nice vacation can do just that. Whether you’re on a strict budget or you want a five-star rated resort, travel membership clubs can be the appropriate choice for many families like yours.

It may seem quite odd that the key for a budget family vacation and a luxury family vacation relies on the same answer…travel clubs.

Travel clubs, at least the reputable ones, not only help you organize your vacations with simplicity, but also save you a huge amount of money than booking directly yourself.

The critical point is finding a good club.

Here are some things to look for in a travel membership club:

You should have 24/7 access to an online travel planning and booking site. Whether it’s 3am in the morning or 7pm at night, you should be able to book and plan your trip at your convenience

One-stop shop resorts/cruises information. You want peace of mind that you’re picking the perfect resorts/cruises for your getaway which is why you need to have access to information on all the resorts/cruises your travel club offers. You should be able to do all your research from your travel back office.

Reasonable Pricing – You want luxury and yet you have a budget that you want to stay within. This is why luxury travel clubs play a great role in rewarding people in both classes. What you want to watch out for are those travel clubs that greatly bulk up their membership rates. The highest membership fee you should pay is around $5k. Anything over that you really need to examine what you’re getting for the extra money you’re paying.

These are the amenities you should have in your travel club membership for comfort and flexibility of planning and booking your vacation. This makes developing your getaway much more fun and enjoyable.

Any club that doesn’t offer those attributes will become a headache down the road when you begin to actually design your vacation. You’ll see how time consuming and stressful it becomes without access to an online travel booking and planning back office. Any club that doesn’t offer this is a club you need to cross of your list.

Luxury travel clubs can offer families like yours the freedom to take that dream vacation even if you’re on strict budget…and even in a daunting economy.

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