Bankrupt State/Country

[cow]

So all this jazz going on with Greece being an ******* got me thinking. Is it possible for a state in the US to go bankrupt? Not the whole country but just one state? And in that case, what happens with that state?

[DUBL DUECE]

California was already writting IOUs instead of paying this year, maybe I can do that when I run out of money. What they will try to do is print more money which is worthless and then you will see hyper-inflation.

[cow]

So how does California pay it's debt? Does the Federal Government jump in then?

[Nomadik Kitty]

So how does California pay it's debt? Does the Federal Government jump in then?

They borrowed a bunch of money (interest free) from the bankrupt counties. It's their right and they exercised it last year. Made our county go from negative $10 million to negative $50 million or something. I'm not sure what's next, because they now owe all their counties money that they don't have too.

They're also doing Furloughs. Our county is doing them with the courts. One Wednesday per month the courts are closed. The state's doing them with the prisons. It's working great too. One guy I know that works for a state prison is getting tons of overtime because of the furloughs. Politicians just don't understand how jails and prisons work. If you cut somebody's hours, it's not like they can just make do without that person. Instead they end up paying someone else time and a half, as opposed to the straight time they'd be paying otherwise. Then they go over-budget on OT, but they made the cuts they were supposed to make.

It's a totally idiotic world that we live in people.

On the bright side, Cow may very well find out what happens to a state that goes totally bankrupt. I'm thinking we'll get bought by Saudi Arabia for 50 drums of oil.

[cow]

So the Federal Government doesn't step in?

The very same could happen here Kitty! We seem to be selectively bankrupt here. We have to make €4 Billion in cuts every year for the next 4 years, and yet we have €500 million spare to lend Greece so they can keep up with their ridiculous economy. Any country where the retirement age is 55 deserves to be dissolved

[Nomadik Kitty]

Any country where the retirement age is 55

Whoa. That's insane. As people start to live longer and stay healthier longer, it's ridiculous to not raise the retirement age. At the average life span, that means that they work for 37 years of their life and don't work for 39 years of it if the labor laws are similar. Yeah, time to go back to the drawing board on that one.

[cow]

All those mediterranean countries are the same. They have their short working days with their siestas! Now they are resisting every call for them to change so they can continue as a country. As far as I'm concerned they'll go bankrupt come May 20th when 8 billion in bonds mature. It's annoying to see that when within the last month many of the EU countries have extended the reitrement age to 68, we are paying to keep Greece's nice lifestyle going.

Germany, the biggest financier of this bailout is reluctant to put up with the money and the EU and Germany have talked about Suspending Greece from the Euro and making them go back to the Drachma until they sort out their mess.

German Finance minister said Greece is no like the ebola virus and the way to treat that is to immediately cut the infected limb off..can't say I disagree.

[Timmy]

What's happened to Greece is a sums up their attitude towards money. They just don't care about their finances enough.

A perfect example of this is my grandma. She was born in Greece and considers herself Greek. However, she's been living in England (and has been a British citizen) for 50+ years now BUT she has been able to claim a Greek state pension on top of the pension she receives from this country even though she hasn't been a Greek citizen for 50 years! Shows you how well they check up on their finances . . .

It doesn't help that a ridiculous amount of Greeks are employed by the public sector either.

[cow]

True that. It certainly didn't help either that they lied their way into the Euro by cooking the books. Serves them right to be ejected. Something like that needs corruption at every level of government. That's a lot of corruption

[PeeKnuckle]

I wonder which nation has the longer life expectancy. The more relaxed one, or the ones hard pressed to be normal, uptight citizens.

Siestas are wonderful. As GG said awhile back, Cow, how many vacations do you have per year? Europeans have probably double the vacation time Americans have. Are we any better, because we work longer? We're not. We're slowly driving ourselves into the dirt. We're self absorbed zombies/drones, thinking we're living the dream. We buy all these new gadgets and toys, because we don't go anywhere or do anything. Maybe we buy some to be more efficient, but you know what? It's like a functioning drug addict. Buy more speed, so I can work more hours, so I can get even more speed, to finally... work even longer. I must have that new gizmotron that I cannot afford. To make it right, I just won't vacation to rest my mind and soul this year.

As I grow older each year, I realize how the Mexicans had it right all along. They don't borrow money to build something they need. They build it one wall at a time. If they run out of money, they halt work and wait until they have the funds to resume. Here, we'd borrow the money, often setting ourselves up for a horrible fall. We live beyond our means. Most of us are in as much debt as the country is. When I first went to Mexico, I thought I was in some derelict nation. Everything seemed abandoned. They were just buildings that weren't finished yet. As I came back year after year, I saw what was going on. Eventually, they became businesses or houses and they were used. I'm going to safely assume that the owners had zero debt, too.

They also support themselves in ways I've never seen before. Familia is first and foremost. It's not uncommon to come across large compounds of large families. They watch out for each other, since their government doesn't. They make sure they're all taken care of. Sometimes it's a bit disturbing, but it's almost always to make sure the entire clan is sound. Sons build and move their parents into their own houses, often with an extended semi outdoor kitchen, so they can run their own restaurants. They become self supporting, but still have that familial compound and support. They in turn, with what they earn, put it back into their own mini infrastructure.

We'd ship our folks off in a heartbeat, if they slowed our pace down one notch. Believe it. It happens every day.

I guess what I'm saying is, you see corruption and I see a way of life that isn't popular or understood. You can call on Greece to change, Cow, but could you? Could all of Ireland become like Grecians overnight? No one can ask an entire nation to change. It won't happen. You'd be lucky to even get a small percent to change. It's wishful thinking, my friend. Set them free from the EU. I bet it's what the people want anyways.

[Timber King]

Siestas are wonderful. As GG said awhile back, Cow, how many vacations do you have per year? Europeans have probably double the vacation time Americans have. Are we any better, because we work longer? We're not. We're slowly driving ourselves into the dirt. We're self absorbed zombies/drones, thinking we're living the dream. We buy all these new gadgets and toys, because we don't go anywhere or do anything. Maybe we buy some to be more efficient, but you know what? It's like a functioning drug addict. Buy more speed, so I can work more hours, so I can get even more speed, to finally... work even longer. I must have that new gizmotron that I cannot afford. To make it right, I just won't vacation to rest my mind and soul this year.

Thia paragraph reminded me of Fight Club.

[MWB]

cow, cow, cow, cow, cow........

how many times did i tell you this would happen? i beleive i secifically pointed this out as a possibility at least once to you.

[cow]

Point out what?

@PK: I perfectly agree. I've been to Spain many times and it's a really nice relaxed atmosphere. I'd have no problem with them keeping their current lifestyle, if they could afford it. But if you look at all these countries in the med who have all these customs, you'll see that Italy is in heeps of debt, over 100% of GDP, Greece has to be bailed out, Spain is doing very poorly now with a recent ratings downgrade and Portugal also had a double rating downgrade because they can't afford their lifestyle and it's other countries who have to pay for it. It's not going to happen over night, but they aren't even showing a willingness to change. They keep blaming "the past" for all of this but at the end of the day it's not the past that's going to pony up the money for them.

I do agree though about the Mexican way of doing things (Wait till you can afford it) Seems these days we've lost that