[radicalbyte]

They retired at 61, whilst in Northern Europe we've just had to raise the age to 67. They - like the Italians - don't like paying their taxes.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2010/02/greeces_g...

We should bail them out, but they should also retire at 67, the (existing) final salary pensions should be cut back and they should start paying their taxes.

[quonn]

This claim has been debunked here: http://blog.zeit.de/herdentrieb/2015/06/18/die-griechische-r...

EU data: Greece 64.4 years, Germany: 65.1.

OECD data: Greece 61.9 years vs. Germany 62.1

So it is actually the same.

[rorykoehler]

Good find. The amount of self-serving disinformation around this whole debacle is disturbing.

[celticninja]

They are retiring earlier, maybe just by a small margin, but earlier regardless. I think that if you also compare the average tax contribution of those retired people you would see that the level of contributions paid by germans would exceed those paid by Greeks. So a direct age comparison won't give a true picture of fairness.

[rorykoehler]

I have to agree with this. It is inhumane and immoral not to bail them out if we can. Sure they have a huge responsibility for their situation however we all do. Much of what caused the crisis globally is being allowed to continue unchecked. We are sleep walking into another crisis yet we are all happy to point the finger at Greece's transgressions as if they are somehow worse than our own.

I don't agree with much of the fiscal and financial structures, strategies and ethos of the world at the moment however this is the path we are on and pivoting out of it will cause huge disruption and suffering. Austerity and measures forced by her creditors have so far failed Greece. It doesn't look bright in the future so they are correct to question the strategy however if they don't get their own house in order it will all be in vain. I think they realise this.