Greece vs 'The World'

baboon2004 said:

if there were 1.4 million working adults in Greece (debt is 316 billion euros, it says here), then that sounds about right...but I think there's about 7 million between 18 and 64, so must be at least 4 million working adults even with 25% unemployment and lots of studying?

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An awful lot of Greek adults are "economically inactive" without being registered as unemployed - consider a very substantial student population, a low retirement age combined with high life expectancy, compulsory military service for men and I guess also stay-at-home mums, and it all adds up.

I guess, though 1.4 million does seem fantastically low even with all of those things... Nevertheless, the debt is too damn high.

Going to be pretty depressing if a 'no' vote isn't returned this Sunday, and, even if it is, seemingly no guarantee that Syriza won't continue to play this absurd game of trying to get the EU authorities to agree to a debt write-off they're never going to agree to. Obvs has to end some time though...

An awful lot of Greek adults are "economically inactive" without being registered as unemployed - consider a very substantial student population, a low retirement age combined with high life expectancy, compulsory military service for men and I guess also stay-at-home mums, and it all adds up.

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So I keep hearing that Greece has a low retirement age - but every time I read that I immediately read something else saying that that is bollocks. If you look on Wikipedia it says 67 or something, towards the higher end. What's the truth of the matter and why can't anyone agree on it? Is it more complicated?

I think they may have had to substantially raise it a few years ago. And there are (or were) quite a lot of jobs from which you could retire much earlier than the standard age.