while we're busy talking about greece nobody is looking Ukraine which is the real dead man walking and can't even pay the salaries without begging to their euro/american puppetmasters.

Obviously, Putin's troll army is pushing his divide and conquer, salami tactics agenda on all fronts.
Greece is, probably, another victory for him after the destruction of Ukraine. Rejoice Titus! (or Titov?)

I am not here to write an essay.

Here is the essay you didn't write, probably written by a desperate Greek:

"Dear Fellow Europeans,
Austrians, Belgians, Bulgarians, Croats, Cypriots, Czechs, Danes, Estonians, Fins, French, Germans, Hungarians, Irish, Italians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Luxembourgians Maltese, Dutch, Pols, Portuguese, Romanians, Slovaks, Slovenians, Spaniards, Swedes and British,
Please allow me to explain to you what has been happening to my country in the last few months and how a group of left wing fanatic ideologues, extremists and opportunists, allied with racists, anti-Semites and neo-* have been leading my nation towards an economic and political Armageddon.
On January 25, after 5 years of economic recession, two bailout packages by the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an unprecedented unemployment rate that today exceeds 27% and a significant loss of the average household income, the Greek people (unwisely) decided to vote into power the Radical Left party of SYRIZA. SYRIZA is comprised of Marxist, Stalinist, Trotskyist and Maoist Communists, Anarchists, lots of opportunists without a clear ideology and Socialists, leftovers from the, once powerful, Socialist party of Greece. Before the elections, SYRIZA exceeded in populism any political campaign in living memory. They literally promised everything to everyone. They took advantage of people�s despair and anger against the traditional, mainstream political parties that are, to a large extend, responsible for the Greek economic crisis. However, in every chance, they confirmed that they would not risk the country�s membership in the Eurozone and the EU. The party�s leader and current Prime Minister, Mr Tsipras, in his teens and early twenties, was a member of the Orthodox-Stalinist Communist party of Greece and has not work a single day of his life.
His coalition government partner is a right wing, extreme populist, anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, psychopathic party, the Independent Greeks, led by an insane fellow who believes in Chemtrails and other conspiracy theories (I kid you not!). He also believes that Greece can seek financial support from countries, such as Russia, China and Iran.
Before 2010, these parties would barely enter parliament reaching the 3% threshold of the popular vote. Exactly like in Germany in the interwar perion and for the same reason (an economic depression), extreme parties have flourished and populism has triumphed in Greece. SYRIZA became the first party with 36% of the popular vote and the Independent Greeks gained another 5%, giving them a parliamentary majority.
What followed was 5 months of so-called negotiations, during which the Minister of Finance, Mr Yanis Varoufakis, a Professor of Economics, specialized in Game Theory and an endless appetite for personal publicity, changed his position on a weekly basis and proposed to the Eurogroup (the Eurozone Finance Ministers� assembly) unachievable economic targets for an economy that was back into recession after a trimester of economic growth in late 2014. In the meantime, in Greece, the coalition government increased public spending by hiring thousands people into the public sector. This completely derailed the economy and resulted in a deficit of more than 5 billion euros. Additionally, there was a widespread media campaign to present the EU, the ECB and the IMF as bloodthirsty monsters that hate the Greek people and wish to starve and humiliate us. A lot of people in Greece actually BELIEVE that this is the true intention of our EU partners!
Political parties, politicians, journalists or even regular citizens, like myself, who defend a United Europe and wish us a part of the Eurozone are characterized as �traitors� and �enemies of the people�.
On Friday, June 26, Mr Tsipras, after failing to reach a compromise with the EU and the IMF, called a snap referendum for Sunday, July 5, in which he is asking the people to vote YES or NO to the following question: �Do you approve the technical proposal of the Creditors of Greece (The EU, ECB and IMF) for the extension of the bailout programme?� This proposal, submitted to the Greek government a few days ago, includes reduction of public spending, increase of the VAT and liberal economic reforms. Keep in mind that increased taxation was proposed to our Creditors by the Greek government itself. The question of the referendum is dishonest and deceiving. The average citizen, misinformed and confused from five months of conflicting information and the anti-European rhetoric of the coalition government, largely unaware of the dire situation of the economy and the consequences of his vote, angry by increased taxes and pension cuts, will naturally vote NO. The actual question that needs to be answered is whether the people want the country in the Euro with reforms or a National Currency without reforms. Of course the coalition government will not put the real question to the vote, they would never take responsibility, they will always blame �the others�.
What the Greek government does with this referendum is nothing less than a political extortion towards the entire EU. On Saturday, June 27, this extortion was put on a vote in the Greek parliament and won a majority support by the MPs of the Radical Left party, its right-wing populist partner and the far-right racist Neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn (the shame of my country, or at least one of the recent shames). This broad anti-European coalition is officially leading my country into the abyss of extremism, populism, international isolation and bankruptcy. This should not come as a total surprise. Mr Tsipras and many SYRIZA party-members have declared, more than once, that Venezuela should serve as �a model of Democracy for Greece�. SYRIZA recognizes its ideological counterparts in Latin-American Socialist semi-dictatorships.
Mr Tsipras and his party, together with their lunatic partners, deceived the Greek people with false promises and stole the popular vote. They then bombarded the public with a coordinated anti-European campaign of lies. Now, they are playing their last card to take Greece out of the Eurozone and the European Union. This is their target. This was their target from the beginning. They are not Democrats, they are Fascists. They were always Fascists. And they want to bring down Democracy in its birthplace.
Please share this message and inform your friends about what is really happening in Greece and what is at stake.
Constantinos Kyriakis"

Quote from: Zero Talent on June 28, 2015, 08:36

Even if the whole Greek debt is erased, they will still have to borrow again, because they spend more than they produce.

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... not true - if they stop paying dept  - there budget is in plus...

Do your homework:

"Under existing bailout targets, Athens was supposed to run a primary surplus � government receipts net of spending, excluding interest payments on sovereign debt � of 3 per cent of GDP in 2015.
With the large surplus now turning into a sizeable deficit, Greece�s debt levels would begin to spike again"



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OK, John Lennon, peace

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The EU membership is the best thing that happened to these countries.
Politicians cannot change the laws to suit themselves and steal with impunity, anymore. They must adhere to the rigors of the EU club.
Some of them would love to go back to the "free-for-all" theft and corruption frenzy from the post-communist years. Some of them would love to buy for themselves, and for peanuts, the telecom, energy or banking industries, you seem to worry so much about. And they would also love to prevent all external competition, only to enrich themselves faster.
This is why they do their best to play the nationalistic card, blaming EU for making life harder for everybody, when in fact it is harder for them to steal, in the name of the "national interest"

Quote from: Zero Talent on June 27, 2015, 15:32

Quote from: StockPhotosArt on June 27, 2015, 14:35

Quote from: spike on June 27, 2015, 13:22

..and all somebody has to do is link the median wage instead of the average...

here: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_European_countries_by_median_wage

Those values are GROSS income. In Portugal, after the huge taxes (among the highest in Europe) the NET income drops considerably and those 694� will fall to under 600�.

And if you consider we pay some of the highest prices for energy, fuel and everything else there's not much money left for anything.

Here is your net income. There are 10 EU countries behind Portugal and Greece!

Portugal has 8177/12 = 681/month NET

2013 !

Right. These are the latest numbers from Eurostat. They don't have all the 2014 numbers, yet.

Quote from: panicAttack on June 27, 2015, 07:37

I am all for referendum, but people of Greece are not going hungry or dying. People in some African countries are, but not in Greece. They have higher pension and wages then people in many others countries in EU, and once they had income even above Germany.  It's sad and unfairly that Croatian, Slovenian, Slovakian, Hungarian, Romanian, Polish or Bulgarian people (tax payers) sending financial help when you check this map:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage

That map serves as a blatant misinformation about the average net income, at least about Portugal, and distorts the truth and the perception of those looking at it.

The average net income for the vast majority of the population is nowhere near 1001�, but being really optimistic more along 600�, and now even less with all the wages dropping.

What happens is that the top ranks of the Portuguese companies are among the highest paid in Europe, even above Germany, while the normal worker is one of the worst paid in the Western Europe.

If you have a CEO earning 50.000� a month (and there are LOADS of them) and his 100 workers earning 500� you get an average income of 990,10�. But the reality is that you may also have a couple directors earning 5.000� raising the average even more.

On a map you may look at those 1001� and think it's not that bad, but the truth is that most of the population is nowhere near that value and closer the the minimum wage of around 500�.

If I eat two chickens and you eat none, the average will say we eat a chicken each, despite you're starving to death and I'm getting fatter everyday...

Portugal is not the best example. There are other countries with a wider gap between min and max wages:

"..as a population-weighted average of EU-28 Member States� national figures the top 20 % (highest equivalised disposable income) of a Member State�s population received 5.1 times as much income as the bottom 20 % (lowest equivalised disposable income) of the Member State�s population. This ratio varied considerably across the EU-28 Member States, from 3.4 in Slovenia, to at least 6.0 in Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia and Greece, peaking at 7.2 in Spain"

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/f/f5/Inequality_of_income_distribution%2C_2012_%281%29_%28income_quintile_share_ratio%29_YB14_II.png

Quote from: sharpshot on June 27, 2015, 10:50

I never understand how any country can borrow so much money and then ask for more when they can't even pay the interest on the loan.  It isn't just Greece, so many countries have been living beyond their means for years now and I hope it all comes to an end soon.  It will be painful for a few years but at the moment most of the world seems to be living in an unsustainable way.  Most of us aren't as well off as we might think.  When debts can't be paid, interest rates will have to go up and everyone that can't pay their mortgage or interest on loans is in for a hard time but at least it will be real, unlike the the world we currently live in.

The main way of creating liquidity (i.e. money supply) is via lending. Lending effectively  increases the amount of money in circulation. It's a genius system which has funded the vast progress enjoyed over the past few hundred years (and also the wars).

And also the reason behind the bubbles and the devastating market crashes. Nothing is for free. Sooner or later the payback time becomes unavoidable.

I never understand how any country can borrow so much money and then ask for more when they can't even pay the interest on the loan.  It isn't just Greece, so many countries have been living beyond their means for years now and I hope it all comes to an end soon.  It will be painful for a few years but at the moment most of the world seems to be living in an unsustainable way.  Most of us aren't as well off as we might think.  When debts can't be paid, interest rates will have to go up and everyone that can't pay their mortgage or interest on loans is in for a hard time but at least it will be real, unlike the the world we currently live in.

This is because people continue to elect those politicians promising unsustainable minimum salary laws, wage increases, social benefits, etc.
When the economy is not strong enough to support the promises, those politicians will borrow or print money.
Greece has debt and more euros are being printed to cover up for those unsustainable expenses (reason for the fallen euro)
Printing euros is nothing else but a hidden tax which affects middle class savings and impacts poor people even more through inflation.
The ones gaining from money printing are always the banks and those close to them since they are the first to put their hands on the new money before the market has adjusted to inflation.

So stop electing irresponsible politicians like this Greek gambler and vote for fiscal responsability.

...this is a beginning of the end of EU - Tsipras is a historical figure - true hero!...

He is not a hero but a poker player who plays a game with other people's money.

You "hero" doesn't even has the guts to make a decision. When EU calls his bluff, he hides behind a referendum.

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Good study, but you should add the $0.19 sales from IS partners to it.

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Quote from: Zero Talent on June 25, 2015, 13:54

Correct, this is the truth: if you don't want to be exclusive, stay away from IS since their non-exclusive offer is an insult.

And Herg, who asked the question, is non-exclusive.

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And how does the payment you get for video sales on iStock as nonexclusive compare to the payments you would get on Shutterstock for footage?

SS normally pays me $20.97 - $23.70 (up to $89.70) for HD
FT pays ~$25 for my non-exclusive rank
and P5 as much as you want.

Quote from: Zero Talent on June 25, 2015, 09:02

$4-$9/HD clip is a shame. Don't encourage their shady business.

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Where do you see those prices of $4-$9/HD on iStock?

I thought HD video clips sell for 18 credits on iStock in the Signature collection, which is roughly $170?

And in the Essentials collection they sell for 6 credits, which is roughly $60?

This is how much the contributor gets and this is why I stopped short selling myself.

Examples: $7.42, $6.48, $7.20, $9.00, $7.80, $5.88, $4.38 (!!!), $8.28, $9.90, $8.10, $5.38 ....
All of them HD.

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