Assignment:
Essay:
Greece vs. Vallejo California
David Graeber asks us to treat debt as a "a promise to pay". Unfortunately, this promise of commitment doesn't always exist, and it can be the result of all sorts of things.In some cases, businesses may be in trouble. Individuals may lose their jobs, or the debtor simply tries to take on too much debt to pay all of it.In the years leading up to 2008. Most people in the world had one thing in common: people, companies and governments had to pay off a lot of debt. Eventually, debt levels became so high as market valuations grew uncontrollably, and it all collapsed and led to a financial crisis that shocked the world. In "Boomerang," Michael Lewis describes his experiences traveling around the world to investigate the after math of the financial crisis and how the impact is different in each region.Two places Lewis visited were Greece and Vallejo, California. While one is a country and the other is just a volatile city, there are some obvious similarities in their finances.
In Greece, the government debt - including civil servant pension fund, the total liabilities of 1.2 trillion euro - in addition to the low interest rate credit flooded lead to great waste of resources and other western countries common fault, fault with Greece itself more real estate, such as the welfare is too good, too many civil servants and the salary is too high (Greek civil servants from the private sector to three times the average wages and pay out 14 months per year), unsually people don't pay tax and mismanagement of state owned enterprises, etc., these are the fatal injures for Greece. The Greek government, which is on the brink of bankruptcy, owes more than 800 billion euros in outstanding pension funds, in addition to the 400 billion euros it owes in foreign debt. It is difficult to raise the large sum of money. Where will this much-anticipated pension come from? Even the gods don't know.
The small city, Vallejo California, was in dire financial straits during that time. Between 2006 and 2010, property values in the city plunged 66%. They also declared bankruptcy in 2008, which threw the city's local government and public services into disarray. The root of the financial problem is similar to the fact that Greece and Vallejo owe most of their debt to public employees. InVallejo, 80 percent of the city's budget goes to pay and benefits for public safety workers. That ended up being the clear majority of the city's absolutely unpayable debt. Overall, Vallejo owes nearly $500 million in claims, but the city has only $6 million to repay.
In my opinion, the important difference what caused the financial issues in these two areas, however, is government structure. For example, in Greece, the retirement age is between fifty and fifty-five for men and fifty-five for women. Moreover, the Greek retirement team is not only younger but also expands year by year, covering almost all sectors of the working population.
Therefore, at the appeal of public opinion, lawmakers are constantly proposing new industries to be incorporated into retirement laws, and few of these bills cannot become bills for the sake of voting. By the end of last year, there were more than 600 jobs guaranteed by the lucrative retirement laws, and you could imagine that all of them included barbers, waiters, musicians and broadcasters who had nothing to do with public services. You can get a pension. Private enterprises have successfully pushed the responsibility of caring for their employees to the government. With so much income and limited income and shrinking, Greece has no problem with its finances.
Also, Greece's public health system is riddled with flaws. It spends more per head than any other country in the European Union. The poor working attitude of Greek medical staff is rare in "advanced" countries. Media not only doctors and nurses often bags in the public medical content even tissues of diapers and other home or resale to the small shop on the corner of the report, due to the state-owned hospital, doctors and nurses and all employees are civil servants, in Greece, civil servants no corruption, so the clinic patients don't bribe to the relevant staff, it may not be able to receive appropriate care.
On the other hand, in Vallejo, it seems that sheer corruption and carelessness do not really cause financial problems. When Lewis was there, the city council was in turmoil, and the relationship between public safety workers and citizens was very bad. But it seems more of a consequence of the situation. Lewis offered the words of one person who said it was the city's longtime resident, Marc Garman.‘There's no good reason why Vallejo is as f*cked up as it is. It's a boat ride to San Francisco.
You throw a stone and you hit Napa.' Overall, I think the problem is that you have public servants in our country and Vallejo, and according to Paige Meyer, one of the city's fire fighters, employees who work like him are asking to make more money because they've done a dangerous job and want more money to compensate for it. Although this actually dried up the city when the economy was depressed, I felt it was a well-known thing in the entire population, which made the situation different from Greece. Both, however, are situations of pure greed, and are consistent with what Lewis told us from UCLA's Peter Whybrow. That said, all are driven by the "lizard core" and strive to get as much as we think is scarce.
Overall, I think the solution for Greece and Vallejo is very similar. In essence, both areas are unable to pay their debts. InVallejo, bankruptcy had been negotiated in 2011, with creditors getting paid but with substantial cuts to what they actually owed. Now the city must be rebuilt. In Greece, the problem seems to be under construction. The problem with a Greek default, according to Mr. Lewis, is that the country is in chaos. Banks will bankrupt and the country will not be able to pay for necessities. It could also have a huge global impact. The problem with avoiding that, as Mr. Lewis describes it, is that it may not be entirely possible for Greece to avoid default. To be sure, both areas are in dire shape after 2008, and they may still be underperforming.