The debt crisis and austerity regime have been hard on retail businesses in Greece. About 25% of the country’s businesses have closed, and that number is expected to increase next year. The worst-hit areas include the major shopping streets in downtown Athens, some of which have business vacancy rates of 30%-40%.In other news, U.S. Marines stationed in Afghanistan are being trained not to spit, urinate, or sleep with their boots in the direction of Mecca. Meanwhile, two Danish foreign aid workers were kidnapped in Somalia.
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1 comments:
There is one thing that "drives" an economy, and that is demand for product or service. If someone has a demand, someone else will be there to meet that demand.
What "builds" an economy is people taking risks for the expectation of profit above what the existing economy demands.
When we tax the profit out of an economy we eliminate the incentive to take risks and the economy stagnates.
When we redistribute wealth from risk takers to non-risk takers, the ultimate consequence is a loss of all wealth... which ends up making everyone poor.
When an economy stagnates the wealth that drives demand for non-essential things goes away. And what we are left with is an economy that provides for the minimum demand.
Eventually there is no wealth and the ability provide for even the most minimal of demand is lost.
People become desperate and seek to whomever they think will save them, often willing to compromise in all manner of ways.
Some desperate risk taker will seek advantage in what others will compromise and use these compromises to bring order... and often revolution... to their society. If this risk taker is corrupt we end up with dictatorships.
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