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Originally Posted by driveway
Financially, the CBC is about 1/6th of the BBC. The BBC took in 3.681 billion pounds (5.8 billion CAD)in 2011-2012, whereas the CBC is funded to the tune of around 1 billion CAD.
Considering that the UK has slightly less than double Canada's population, the six-fold increase in expenditure on public broadcasting represents a massive per-capita increase.
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I am all for the CBC and the funding it gets and feel it is very important, but it can't compare to the BBC. The BBC has global demand, and while the CBC promotes and preserves Canadian culture within Canada, the BBC is an exporter of British culture globally. It's in their best interest to fund it more.
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RE: Greece, my folks live in Germany, the country which is largely responsible for pushing the Greeks to adopt austerity measures and they tell me that, while the Germans are perfectly aware that austerity budgets don't result in economic growth (are you listening, conservatives?) most of Europe feels that harsh austerity is the only way to change the culture in Greece, something which must come first, before truly effective economic reform can be implemented.
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They'll never change the culture there without a massive population shift, which could quite possibly be the main long term goal.
The whole "siesta" thing is a little misunderstood IMO (they do the same thing in Croatia, although not as much as it used to be, especially inland). They may take a couple of hours off in the afternoon, but most businesses are also open at 6am, so the total number of daily work hours is the same for the avaerage worker. Cities on the Mediterranean /Adriatic/Aegean are a lot busier at 5am than most North American and Northern European cities.
Edit: Just to add, I have read that the "siesta" lifestyle of mid-day rest and lunch being the large meal of the day instead of supper, is a more natural and healthy way of living.
It was just an example.
