Apple Gives iCloud Customers in Greece 30 Extra Days of Storage Amid Fiscal Crisis

Ugh, kick them out of the EU already!!!

It's so easy to make fun and jokes on the internet.

Ugh, kick them out of the EU already!!!

Sure, limiting their access to European goods, services, markets and people is really going to help them recover.

The design of the EU didn't sufficiently consider States in severe financial difficulty. This is a structural problem; you can't simply kick out any and every state which ever experiences financial difficulty. As others have pointed out, the German economy has at times been very far from its current strength.

Not only that, but they have used their industrial capacity to do some unspeakably evil things which we have also learned to overcome in the spirit of cooperation. There was a time when those acts caused the world to consider the elimination of the state of Germany altogether - a Gexit from the world, if you will.

Germany would do well to remember how much capacity for forgiveness and recovery exists in the world.

Ugh, kick them out of the EU already!!!

Will that solve the problem? Do you know how the German economy was 60 years ago?

That's nice of Apple

60 years ago, Germans had been working hard for ten years after World War II, with considerable progress being made. Ten years of rebuilding houses and factories. That was one year after celebrating becoming Football World Champions in 1954. Food rationing had stopped in 1948; it continued in Britain until 1954. There was the attitude that people would create wealth out of their own power with hard work. That is something completely missing in Greece.

That is NOT completely missing in Greece, nor in Portugal, and nor in Spain. People in the south WANT jobs… except there ARE NONE to be seen, especially for young people. We are not lazy! We work our ASSES off when we are lucky enough to have a job, for near-slavery “wages” (I'd even say that some slaves were better off than some interns, as their owners had to make sure they survived in order to maximize their investment; nowadays, unpaid or under-paid internships are more common than not and, guess what, you either go back to your parents' place or you starve. Nice!).

Case in point: I'm friends with around twenty HIGHLY QUALIFIED people who left the country, since the economy was so botched they couldn't get a decent job anywhere (yes, not just jobs in services, but on actually sellable goods). Guessed who paid for their education? US. With OUR taxes. Guess who is benefiting from all that investment? The british, german, french et. al. Everyone, I mean EVERYONE is friends/family with at least of 5-20 young people who left recently (if I extended that count to acquaintances, the number would surely rise above 50). In 2013 alone, at least 110.000 people (in a country with a population of around 10 million) left the country… It is estimated that there are currently 2.3 million portuguese living abroad… and most aren't doing it for sport or to “gain experience”, but out of sheer necessity. Do you think that's normal or desirable by any measure?

As for the “EU solidarity”, that's a load of bollocks… CEOs and politicians were complicit with policies (including the Common Agricultural Policy), the imposition of production quotas and forceful imports in exchange for subsidies… that took us nowhere. We used to produce our own trains; now we import them from Germany. We used to grow our own food; now we import it from the EU and also some other exotic places, at great energetic expense. Our utilities were sold to the chinese. Our airports, bridges and the former telecom company, to the french. Oh, and we now have not one, but *two* highways from Lisbon to Porto (partly funded by EU-funds and loans, I'm guessing).

Sure, much of that might be attributable to a lack of democratic culture by the people (something not that hard to understand after 40 years of fascism and sub-par education). But what about the lenders, our “EU friends”? Are they exempt from responsibility? Shouldn't there have been SOME supervision? Some independent studies before throwing bags of cash so the “lazy south” could build redundant highways and all sorts of useless public projects?

I, for one, was born in 1985 and only started voting in 2003. Why should I be punished by decisions made by irresponsible politicians when I was a kid? Give me a break. Nor should the young greeks, who never voted for PASOK or ND. You people should all be ashamed to make stupid comparisons, really. But since you've brought the topic of WWII, here goes: Right now, there is a MASSIVE economic war undergoing in the world and, by proxy, in Europe. Basically we have the big capital and big finance trying to deregulate the EU markets at all costs and turn it into the new China/Bangladesh/[insert third world labour market] and Europe, out of sheer stupidity and old divisions, are letting them have their way (nay, even enhancing it!). Internally, there is a North/South (Protestant/Catholic) divide (I know this is a bit of a gross simplification, but take it for what it is) and a East/West divide (with the newcomers, still recovering from their split from the USSR, wanting to throw Greece under the bus and, ironically – and, more important, stupidly – enough into the arms of Vladimir Putin).

I mean, seriously! At the head of them you have Germany, of all nations, speaking of “discipline”, “trust”, “efficiency” and all sorts of crap. I mean, THE NERVE of the germans! I know very well of all the public spending shenanigans and inefficiencies they also have in their record, like the infamous and massively over-budget Berlin/Brandenburg airport which keeps getting delayed… No, I don't even have to go into those examples from the past… I, as a citizen from the EU, am probably also suffering some kind of penalty from overspending on the richer parts of the Union, and you don't usually hear me complaining about that. But I am well informed and refuse to be looked down upon just because I come from the “lazy south”. Not without a fight, at least.

That is something completely missing in Greece.

And how do you know ?? I lived in Athens from 2006 until 2010 and my advice is to stop eating everything that the media feeds you .. There are people in Greece who work 16 hours a day, doing 3 different jobs, to get 400 euros a month .. They can barely pay for their bills and rent and for the past 5 years they are doing the best they can to survive .. But at least those are still alive, because there are others who have nothing to eat and die in the streets ..

I'm not going to discuss if it's right or wrong to write off Greece's debt in a technology forum, each one is entitled to his own opinion .. Good job from Apple for supporting those in need ..