There are an infinite number of ways to evade, but most are a variant on the idea of paying the tax man personally a small percentage in return for his elimination of the tax bill.
And the tax man apparently has the same laissez-faire attitude about life. Nice for the people, not so good for government trying to meet payment demands from creditors. Interesting...
A demonstrative example is that wages in Bulgaria are half that of the average Greek wage. Now would that explain why Renault has some of its cars built in Bulgaria rather than Greece?I don't see it that way. Austerity does nothing except squeeze more blood out of a stone. A lot of people are suffering around the world just to maintain a competitive export advantage for Germany.... that's what it amounts to at the end of the day.
Greece needs to be allowed to grow. Its creditors' demands are ridiculous and hostile.
Absolutely.And such being the case, it had no business forming a monetary union, as a monetary union without a fiscal policy backing it can never be structurally sound.
A demonstrative example is that wages in Bulgaria are half that of the average Greek wage. Now would that explain why Renault has some of its cars built in Bulgaria rather than Greece?
One also need see (not disputing the death sentence that austerity has imposed on Greece here) that Germany put heavy austerity measures upon its own people some years ago. Like raising pension age to 67, heavily cutting unemployment benefits, loosening laws that up til then governed firing and hiring, reducing the extent of healthcare etc. and allowing wages to freeze (effectively being reduced by inflation).
Not Merkel's lot, the Social Democrats that had taken a look at figures and demographics.
Lost them the next election by the enraged Germans who went to Merkel. Who in turn, along with her bunch, meanwhile firmly believes that it was all her (their) idea, seeing how Germany has long since been reaping in the benefits.
Funny thing being that those most indignant at the time are now patting themselves on the back and sneering at Greece along the tack of "we had to do our homework, why not you?"
When the opposition (so small you can hardly find them in parliament) mentions little "unpleasantries" of German banks in the forefront having made a bundle on any loan they could push onto Greek banks in the past (before the meltdown appeared), whether Greece needed it or not, that gets kinda drowned inown self-complacency of the listener.
I'm all right so eff you Jack.
Absolutely.
As a tidbit, that's what Kohl (then German chancellor) said. He was not opposed at all but except under those conditions.
The trouble was heavy opposition to German unification, especially by Thatcher and Mitterand. So Mitterand used the opportunity to twist the German arm, i.e. by neutralizing its new potential in robbing it of the DeutschMark and forcing it to accept the Euro. To sort of curbing any control potential it might develop. Otherwise no re-unification. Kohl crumbled.
BIG BIG mistake (Mitterand's and Thatcher's, not Kohl's). The Euro has done Germany more proud than the DM ever did or could and is actually "harder" still today. And we know how much France is actually controlling Germany, right?
Won't mention the UK here
One more OT and then I'm done: Kohl didn't want Italy in it either (Spain and Portugal were not even in the offing then) but Mitterand insisted they come on board. As another counter-balance in case Germany got in bed with the (I'll mention them after all) Brits and joined into their pesky shenanigans.:mrgreen:
Big success, eh?
Everybody kept mum about it at the time, it didn't come out until later. The conservatives (then in power) are denying it to this day, strangely the French side has no problems admitting it.Some interesting bits of history I did not know. I will have to read up a bit on that.
This thread has become very informative for me. My knowledge of modern European history is pretty thin relative to its importance. And not to get even further off-topic, I wanna say Mr. Grimm may now be my favourite DP conservative. Remind me — what is it yer wrong about?
since you asked.
After entering the EU under false pretenses, Greece went out of their way to avoid exceeding the explicit limitations on deficit spending spelled out in the Maastricht Treaty. No, they didn't go out of their way to be socially and fiscally responsible, they went out of their way to hide debt and new loans while they continued to spend on a bloated public sector.
For years Millions of Greek citizens took advantage of unsustainable public sector giveaways including multiple bonuses annually, early pensions and excessive income. All payed for by someone else.
A Nation could be fined severely for exceeding the deficit spending limitations spelled out int he Maastricht Treaty. Blaming the Creditors for any of this is just ridiculous.
-- Where was the due diligence from the Greeks when they were spreading their toxic bonds throughout European Banks while taking advantage of the pretense of being a member nation in good standing ? Where was the due diligence when they grew their public sector to unsustainable proportions at the expense of their economy ??
-- Lol...Now your'e just making up excuses as you go along. Other EU Member Nations had no problem adhering to the strict guidelines in the Treaty. Greece gets no sympathy from me and shouldn't get any sympathy from the Troika.
It would appear they had every intention of entering into the Union under false pretenses for the explicit purpose of defrauding their creditors. It's analogous to someone figuring out a way to hack the credit agencies so they could turn their 540 Credit score into a 800 for the purpose of acquiring multiple credit cards
Once the score gets bumped up they go on a spending spree with ZERO intentions of paying back their debt. That's also called Fraud and Greece did it on a National Scale.
-- It would appear that they've been fundamentally corrupted by the entitlement mentality. There's not much hope for Greece apparently.
Ouch! And I was hoping I might be invited to yer wedding. No big fat Greek ceremony now, eh?
Fwiw, I'm not gonna say yer "wrong" about that. But I'd like to see you change yer mind. I figure you'd be happier and not lose a thing.
Strange response. You say 'you can't compare the EU and the US', and then you do just that, quite accurately. Compare means to note the similarities and dissimilarities between two things.Don't you understand that you cannot compare the EU to the US?
The US is a nation where it is also a union. The EU is nothing of the sort and the first step to ever even approach such a status would be for all its people to agree on voting a EU government with possible somebody like Merkel or Hollande heading it.
After Rome and the Byzantines the next order of business for Greece is to ruin the EU.
Byzantines? The Greek empire ruined themselves?
The Greeks started ruling the Byzantines since the 7th century. It was their great idea to let Slavs in in exchange for protection.
What Greek Empire? Which century are you talking about?
Oh dear. Bloomberg reports that one of the creditors' documents translated into Greeks so that voters can make an informed decision at the referendum has a mistranslation in it.
If it wasn't confusing enough, the Greek version of the 'preliminary debt sustainability analysis for Greece' left out a crucial "no"
After Rome and the Byzantines the next order of business for Greece is to ruin the EU.
I provided dates and the century, I have a historical book to support the above mentioned claims, while you give me Weak-O-Pedia?
Okay, so you think the Byzantine Empire wasn't Greek, and began 3 centuries after it was created by Constantine the Great in 330CE.
Fine. I'll leave you to your ignorance.
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