Greece's deficit

Over the past decade, Greece took full advantage of a strong euro and rock-bottom interest rates to fuel a debt binge by the country's consumers and its government. When the global economy crumpled, the stage was set for a financial crisis that soon drew in much of Europe and ultimately the International Monetary Fund. While a deal was reached to support new borrowing by the Greek government, the episode raised new questions about the fate of the euro zone.
The trigger for the crisis was Greece's admission in late 2009 that its government deficit would be 12.7 percent of its gross domestic product, not the 3.7 percent the previous government had forecast earlier. Investors were stunned. In early 2010, the fears grew into a full-fledged financial panic, as investors questioned whether Greece's Socialist government could push through the tough measures it has promised to reduce its budget deficit. As the fear spread to Portugal and Spain, leaders of Europe's more affluent countries like Germany and France, worried about lasting damage to the euro, stepped in with a pledge to defend the currency but initially stopped short of an outright bailout for Greece, which had built up $400 billion in debt.
As part of an austerity plan, the Greek government in early March 2010 approved a round of tax increases and pay cuts for public employees. The steps were met with a series of angry but peaceful protests by civil servants and others that seemed to suggest a limit to the extent to which the country could cut its way out of the crisis. But the cuts also gave some reassurance to investors and to France and Germany that Greece was moving to get its house in order.
After months of fractious debate, in late March the 16 countries that use the euro agreed on a financial safety net for Greece, combining bilateral loans from those European nations with cash from the International Monetary Fund. The proposal, brokered by France and Germany and then approved by European leaders, would take effect if the Greek government were unable to borrow in the commercial markets. Under the deal, loans would be provided at market rates and offered only with the agreement of all the nations that use the euro currency.
The vague assurances were not enough by themselves to reassure the bond markets, who steadily raised the interest rate on money they were willing to lend Greece. On April 11, European leaders announced that they would make $30 billion available to Athens, along with $10 billion from the I.M.F., in the form of loans with an interest rate of 5 percent -- lower than the 7.5 percent Greece had been paying, but high enough that German officials could insist that it did not constitute a subsidy or bailout. Two days later, Greece sold $1.6 billion in new bonds, in a sale that was heavily oversubscribed.

New York Times
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/greece/index.html

How to raise a greek daughter LOLOL

How To Raise A Greek Daughter

 1. Never let your daughters spend the night anywhere, except at a fellow Greek's house.
2. Spend their whole life trying to find them a husband and disapproving of every one they find on their own.
3. Spoil them rotten, but make them feel guilty for it when they ask for something.
4. Fathers - tell them their just like their mothers when you're mad. Mothers- tell them they have their father's head when you're mad.
5. Always compare them to other greek girls (preferably those they can't stand) when trying to make them do something.
6. Complain that their clothes are too short, too tight, too low cut, too black, too cheap, or not right for church.
7. Brag to your friends about how beautiful and smart they are, but tell them to make their sons to stay away.
8. Press for them to marry a greek man, but then ward them off any Greek man you see them with. "He's okay, but his mother is crazy." "His father cleans up goat shit." "I heard his has a big house but he locks his yiayia downstairs, do you want to marry someone like that?" "No policemen."
9. Tell them they eat too much or not enough, depending on the situation.
10. Let them run around naked as children, but make them dress like nuns as adults.
11. Complain they spend too much money shopping, and then go out and blow $1000 on a poker game or gambling.
12. Tell them they never keep their car clean enough, even if your vehicle is covered in dust, reeks of smoke, and has empty coffee cups and food crumbs covering the inside.
13. Force them to be nice to people they can't stand, while you talk about those same people like they are dogs.
14. Have a fit when they use the word 'malaka', but use it yourself as if it were going out of style.
15. Let their brothers get away with murder.
16. Embarrass them by getting drunk at name days, Easter, festivals, etc, and then dancing the zembekeiko.
17. Assign a name to all their friends, and use them at inappropriate occasions (i.e. the mavra, the fat one, the ugly one, the dumb one, the slut, the chinese one)
18. Never let them leave the house after 10 O'clock.
19. Force them to go to church, join GOYA, dance in the festival.
20. Tell them "good greek girls don't behave that way" as many times as possible within a lifetime.
21. Buy them gold jewelry even when you know they only wear silver.
22. Fathers - always leave your shirt unbuttoned at least 3 buttons, exposing chest hair and gold cross, when going anywhere with your daughters.
23. Expect them to know all of the Greek dances - except for the tsiftetelli.
24. Make them believe that Greek women never have sex.
*www.europeans.co.za*

Aristotle and the recovery of Greek Medicine

 The Loss and Recovery of Greek Medicine in the West

After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, most works of the Greek physicians were lost to Western Europe.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, however, Western Europeans began to rediscover Greek scientific and medical texts. This was due in part to the discovery of Arab repositories of learning in Spain and elsewhere during the Crusades as well as the immigration to Italy of Byzantine scholars at the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

At first Greek theories, prescriptions, and procedures were accepted as medical dogma about human anatomy, physiology, and treatment. Later, however, the Greeks’ entreaties to their readers to observe the human body and the world around them won out, and scholars began to perform their own research, leading to much of the medicine practiced in the West today.

 click here!!

...But save me. Take me to the ship, cut this arrow out of my leg, wash the blood from it with warm water and put the right things on it - the plants they say you have learned about from Achilles who learned them from Chiron, the best of the Centaurs."-The Iliad of Homer, Book XI

Athenaze Greek Exercises

University Of Victoria Online Athenaze Greek Exercises

Athenaze is an introduction to Attic Greek, the dialect of the great Athenian writers of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. My suggestion to those who are brave enough to learn this marble language would be to start with Attic Greek instead of Koine (New Testament) Greek. Attic Greek is a more complex form of the language and it is much easier to go from Attic to Koine than it is from Koine to Attic. If you learn New Testament Greek at some dirty Bible college, you will not be able to enjoy Plato, Xenophon, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Lysias et al.

Click Here !!Welcome! This site will help you practice what you learn from the Athenaze text book. Before you start, please read the instructions to make sure your computer is able to handle the materials correctly.