dailymail.co.uk reports: [ Children are being abandoned on Greece's streets by their poverty-stricken families who cannot afford to look after them any more. Youngsters are being dumped by their parents who are struggling to make ends meet in what is fast becoming the most tragic human consequence of the Euro crisis.

Centre founder Fr Antonios Papanikolaou told the Mirror: 'Over the last year we've had hundreds of parents who want to leave their children with us. They know us and trust us. 'They say they do not have any money or shelter or food for their kids, so they hope we might be able to provide them with what they need.'

It comes as pharmacists revealed the country had almost run out of aspirin, as multi-billion euro austerity measures filter their way through society. Further evidence of Greeks feeling the pinch of austerity measures is the lack of aspirin and other medicines now available in the country. Pharmacists are struggling to stock their shelves as the Greek government, which sets the prices for drugs, keeps them artificially low. This means that firms are turning to sell the drugs outside of the country for a higher price - leading to stock depletion for Greeks.

Meanwhile, talks about private sector creditors paying for part of a second Greek bailout are going badly, senior European bankers said tonight. That raises the prospect that euro zone governments will have to increase their contribution to the aid package. 'Governments are mulling an increase of their share of the burden,' said one banker, while another said 'Nothing is decided yet, but the bigger the imposed haircut the less appetite there is for voluntary conversion.' ]

Several amazing points are brought into focus in this brilliant piece out of Greece regarding the consequences of government involvement in economies, the consequences of the death spiral that austerity brings, the reduction in living standards and the resulting issues that arise in a society that is forced into austerity. Starting with the idea that the reduction in the Greek living standard, as a result of the government signing the Greek citizens onto the obligation of the bankers trillion dollar derivative nightmare, families are finding themselves unable to afford to keep their families fed and housed. Let that sink in for a minute, families are forced to surrender their children to local churches and charities in hopes that they will be able to clothe and feed them. Austerity is just that, a forced contraction of an economy at the expense of the people who least can afford it in the name of protecting the government and the banks who are so closely intertwined. The ugly truth is that austerity only centralizes and consolidates the economy in the hands of those who have positioned themselves strategically in alignment with the government.

Speaking to the point of the government and their involvement in the control of the ‘aspirin market’, when government inserts itself in a market where by they ‘dictate the price & availability of a commodity’ they skew that market and steer it into the hands again of those who have closely aligned themselves with that government. When the drug makers are forced to get lets say 15-30% less than they may get for their consumer good in another neighboring market, free market economics dictate that the consumer good will go where it may fetch the highest price. This free market phenomenon is happening simultaneously as the consumer in question has less and less disposable income which only limits the available market for the sale of the commodity, which only assures that the goods will find the market where it is wanted and can be afforded. So as the Greeks have less money to feed and house their children, they find themselves unable to acquire the essentials they need to survive, this is austerity at its finest.

Austerity and government manipulation in an economy are the driving forces that create a thriving black market for goods that otherwise may not be able to be obtained by the average person. This is why local ‘Robin Hoods’ emerge that are all too willing to highjack a aspirin delivery truck that may be in route to a competing economy and then sell or barter the items to locals who are suffering as a result of this dynamic. Of course this creates an environment that is reminiscent of the poorly produced ‘futuristic society’ movies we grew up on in the 1980s. They foreshadowed a society where the corporations are ridiculously profitable and rich as a result of their uncanny alignment with the dictatorial government who plans and controls the society through the economy and the seedy black market underground creates a rift in society between the haves and have nots. Funny how cinema often mirrors current realities and at the same time foreshadows the probable future, but when you watch it you think to yourself ‘that could never happen here’. The problem is that through crisis that have emerged, freedoms, liberties and free market economics have been victimized in the name of the public good.

Understand that when Greeks are forced to surrender their most cherished accomplishment, their own flesh and blood, and pray that they may have a better life without their parents we are not far away from complete societal upheaval and an economic depression in that region. When this upheaval reaches the boiling point and inflation destroys the economy, the solution to this type of chaos will be a swift and firm militaristic response that will only clamp down more on the society and reduce liberties and freedoms. This becomes a dynamic of resentment and fear and society can break down to something worse than third world food riots. The only hope for the average person is to insure themselves against the erosion of their purchasing power so that they don’t find themselves being priced out of the market for the consumer goods they need to survive and provide for their families. This can ONLY be done when one purchases gold & silver as it will rise to offset the decline in the purchasing power of the currency of the region. The more the central banks print, the more that gold & silver will rise to match the newly printed volume of money that has been introduced into the economy. As more and more dollars are forced into circulation, more countries will become unwilling to accept those dollars which will only force them back onto the citizens of the country from which they originated. This becomes a death spiral that can not be escaped unless gold & silver have been acquired to offset this ominous reality. The FED will continue to print US dollars and this reality we see in Greece could very well come to America. Buy your gold & silver now and hope this is not the future for our children. 2012 will be the year of great change and struggle in the world, soften the impact of this dynamic by insuring your net worth with physical gold & silver today and sleep well at night knowing you have prepared for the rough waters ahead.