Rick Steves' Greece: Athens & the Peloponnese amazon.com
Bust: Greece, the Euro and the Sovereign Debt Crisis - By Matthew Lynn amazon.com
Greece's 'Odious' Debt: The Looting of the Hellenic Republic by the Euro, the Political Elite and the Investment Community - By Jason Manolopoulos amazon.com
Understanding the Crisis in Greece: From Boom to Bust - By Theodore Pelagidis amazon.com
The Imminent Crisis: Greek Debt and the Collapse of the European Monetary Union amazon.com
Eyewitness Greece - Athens and the Mainland - 352 Pages
Financial markets and economic growth in Greece, 1986-1999 [An article from: Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money]
Athens Demographics:
The population count for Athens was 10,964,020 in 2001. According to eurostat, in 2008 Greece had a total estimated population of 11,262,000. Of this, some 695,979 are estimated to be non-Greek.
June 4, 201 0
EU bailout plan under investigation
EU Observer article by Andrew Willis on the 'undemocratic' ways in which the bailout plan was put together so quickly in May:
"An influential member of the European Parliament has questioned the way in which EU leaders and finance minster's rapidly cobbled together a €750 billion eurozone rescue mechanism at the beginning of last month, referring to the process as "highly undemocratic".
...Sources say EU leaders meeting in Brussels on the fateful Friday, 7 May, were presented with a doomsday scenario, with analysts predicting skyrocketing borrowing rates for several peripheral eurozone states the following week.
As part of the resulting deal to protect these states and the eurozone as a whole, the European Central Bank was also forced to throw standard practices."
On top of this, the euro takes a pounding (euro hits 4-year low below $1.20 USD) as focus on sovereign debt moves to Hungary which appears to be on the verge of a meltdown. Wall Street Journal article by Ishaq Siddiqi and Andrea Tryphonides examines the problems pushing the euro down:
"European shares fell Friday, hit on two fronts after Hungary re ignited concerns about debt in Europe and the U.S. reported a disappointing reading on the job market. The euro sank, with traders citing official comments on Hungary's woes and rumors of derivative problems at Societies General.
... HSBC Bank caused jitters with a research note to clients in which it downgraded Europe excluding the U.K. to "underweight" from "neutral."
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