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Tuesday, October 11, 2011

This is truly hard to believe !

Greece, the cradle of Democracy, the birth place of Socrates, Plato and many other important thinkers is broke. Yes, GREECE IS BROKE !!!
The other members of the European Union tried to avoid this disaster and gave Greece 65 Billion Euros.
Yes this is  65 BILLIONS OF EUROS, or about 91 Billion Dollars. Quite a chunck of money, wouldn't you say? None of it will ever likely be paid back.
This turned out was like pouring a bucket of water into the sands of the Sahara.
Now, one wonders, how can such a thing come about? There are, of course, a number of reasons: Not the least of which is the fact, that the Greek Government has been spending money like a shipload of drunken sailors:  One Example:
This past June, the then Greek Minister of Labour, Louka Katseli, allowed that there are at minimum 4,500 Civil Servants receiving unjustified Pensions, although many of them have died several years ago.
Beginning this past July and until the end of September, the IKA, Greece's largest Government operated Pension Plan asked all recipients of  Pension payments to re-register.
898,643 Pensioners did so.
109,421 Pensioners have disappeared without a trace, even though they collected their monthly payments faithfully. Are they dead? How long have they been dead?
At present a careful study is under way in respect of 9000 Pensioners, which, according to Government records would have to be over 100 years old, 500 of them in fact were borne more than 110 years ago.
In total it is estimated that about 110,000 Greeks collect pension payments without an entitlement.
If this estimate is correct, (some say it is the tip of the iceberg) the annual cost of this embezzelment amounts to about 1.5 Billion Euros annually.
It is staggering to think how many people, relatives and doctors must be in on this scam.

I am repeating this account from our normally very reliable newspaper. (Tuesday, 11th of October.)It is not based on my own research.

Hey, Buddy, will you cash my Pension check?
Bertstravels

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