'this is Greece, not Ireland, we'll fight back'

nice1franko

Also...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/world/europe/02evasion.html?

ATHENS — In the wealthy, northern suburbs of this city, where summer temperatures often hit the high 90s, just 324 residents checked the box on their tax returns admitting that they owned pools.

So tax investigators studied satellite photos of the area — a sprawling collection of expensive villas tucked behind tall gates — and came back with a decidedly different number: 16,974 pools.

That kind of wholesale lying about assets, and other eye-popping cases that are surfacing in the news media here, points to the staggering breadth of tax dodging that has long been a way of life here.

Such evasion has played a significant role in Greece’s debt crisis, and as the country struggles to get its financial house in order, it is going after tax cheats as never before.

...

reprazant

baaaa wrote: »

They want change.

Nice and vague.

Change to what?

A different government?

A different way of dealing with their bankrupt country?

Do they actually have any ideas of what to do differently?

Hells Belle

baaaa wrote: »

Eh seems that you're a little bit more bothered than I.
Look,only an idiot with little knowledge of anything would think that the greeks should be more bothered about tourism right now,and as you said such you are an idiot with..

Do you have a key on your keyboard that actually says idiot, cause you seem to use it a lot whilst not actually adding anything constructive to the debate.
Why shouldn't they be bothered about tourism? Heres a few stats:
Their MAIN industry is tourism, there are over 65% of the population employed in services
Greece attracts more than 16 million tourists each year, thus contributing 15% to the nation's Gross Domestic Product. In 2008, the country welcomed over 16.5 million tourists. The number of jobs directly or indirectly related to the tourism sector were 659,719 and represented 16.5% of the country's total employment for 2004.
No they shouldn't give a fcuk about it really :rolleyes:

ocokev

It was great to hear one commentator on an American news channel yesterday saying it was strange that it wasn't just the unemployed people rioting but ordinary everyday workers, teachers etc.

Funkfield

Its a pity.

Greece has given us such amazing things throughout history.....


.....philosophy.....

.....democracy.....

.....the republic.....

.....the kebab......

baaaa

ocokev wrote: »

It was great to hear one commentator on an American news channel yesterday saying it was strange that it wasn't just the unemployed people rioting but ordinary everyday workers, teachers etc.

Yeah the media is selling it as anarchists and nationwide tax evasion,most are still falling for this unfortunately.You'd be surprised at the amount of people that still rattle off the headlines in the mainstream media as if they were gospel.
Greeks know better though and are fighting back.

prinz

Biggins wrote: »

Greece might be protesting sometimes for the wrong reason but at least they are bothering their backside to do something, anything, about what they believe in and feel strongly about.
Unlike a lot of others here at home.

Yes they are bothering to do somoething; murdering other Joe Soap workers, burning out small shops, burning out cars etc.

Fantastic Joe, if I burn my neighbours car out that'll bring change.:rolleyes:

dr.bollocko

baaaa wrote: »

you sap

baaaa wrote: »

This is a really dumb post,you do know that things are different prices in different countries?Ever been abroad?
That's a keen economic mind you have.

baaaa wrote: »

Eh seems that you're a little bit more bothered than I.
Look,only an idiot with little knowledge of anything would think that the greeks should be more bothered about tourism right now,and as you said such you are an idiot with..

Please read the charter before posting in this thread again. Insulting other members is not allowed. Refrain from doing so in future.

baaaa

prinz wrote: »

Yes they are bothering to do somoething; murdering other Joe Soap workers, burning out small shops, burning out cars etc.

Fantastic Joe, if I burn my neighbours car out that'll bring change.:rolleyes:

Haha ,yeah the greeks are murdering joe soaps and burning out each others cars like ejits.That's all they're at sure.Nothing to see here folks.

prinz

baaaa wrote: »

Haha ,yeah the greeks are murdering joe soaps and burning out each others cars like ejits.That's all they're at sure.Nothing to see here folks.

Just what did burning out a bank branch with the employees inside achieve?

baaaa

prinz wrote: »

Just what did burning out a bank branch with the employees inside achieve?

Absolutely nothing-nobody heard about it,it made no one think,no one discussed it,it will be quickly forgotten.

NothingMan

\0/ YAY, I just won a trip to Athens with work for being such an outstanding employee. Leaving on 3rd June.


"Riots in Athens"

"Volcano disrupts air travel"



Aww crap!

Hells Belle

baaaa wrote: »

Yeah the media is selling it as anarchists and nationwide tax evasion,most are still falling for this unfortunately.You'd be surprised at the amount of people that still rattle off the headlines in the mainstream media as if they were gospel.
Greeks know better though and are fighting back.

Know what exactly?

baaaa

Hells Belle wrote: »

Know what exactly?

Where to start?
They believe that current events are being orchestrated by certain people for money.

prinz

baaaa wrote: »

Absolutely nothing.

First bit of sense you've posted yet on this thread. Killing 3 bank workers and an unborn child achieved absolutely nothing.

Hells Belle

baaaa wrote: »

Where to start?
They believe that current events are being orchestrated by certain people for money.

Well that makes the murder and anarachy ok then. You've changed my mind, I'm going to go and burn my local council offices and then the local hospital and banks just to show those "certain people" you don't mess with the little man :rolleyes:

Wanna know who the "certain people" are - they are the ordinary GREEKS - they voted for the govt, they didn't pay their taxes. They want it all but they don't want to work for it - they want us to pay for it.

You obviously have the tin foil hat on too tight. Conspiracy Theories ----> thatawy

Wibbs

"After yesterday's call by two German politicians that Greece sell off islands, historic buildings and artworks before receiving aid, the German tabloid Bild has written an open letter to the Greek prime minister George Papandreou:

Dear prime minister,

If you're reading this, you've entered a country different from yours. You're in Germany.

Here, people work until they are 67 and there is no 14th-month salary for civil servants. Here, nobody needs to pay a €1,000 bribe to get a hospital bed in time.

Our petrol stations have cash registers, taxi drivers give receipts and farmers don't swindle EU subsidies with millions of non-existent olive trees.

Germany also has high debts but we can settle them. That's because we get up early and work all day.

We want to be friends with the Greeks. That's why since joining the euro, Germany has given your country €50bn. "

Ouch. Knowing someone who has lived there for 20 years she would agree with a lot of that. Major tax avoidance going on. The authorities are slow, very slow to react to it too I gather.

While we're not nearly as bad, we had a touch of it too. Massaging of subsidies, bloated public sector and a bit of a black economy going on. Most countries have it. Germany included. Greece is an extreme though. I like the place, like the people too, but even in my brief times there I did note that regulations etc were more to be circumvented.

baaaa

Wibbs wrote: »

We want to be friends with the Greeks. That's why since joining the euro, Germany has given your country €50bn. "

Good aul germany,so friendly,always trying to make new buddies.
Germany is a mainly export driven economy,this is why they pushed so hard for the union.
The 50bn figure is a nice figure for tabloid readers to relate to as they have little knowledge.In reality Germany has made many multiples of that figure from the union and smaller countries who's economies were out of synch lost many multiples of that figure when the **** hit the fan.
Why bother showing an article from a tabloid anyway?

PeakOutput

baaaa wrote: »

Good aul germany,so friendly,always trying to make new buddies.
Germany is a mainly export driven economy,this is why they pushed so hard for the union.
The 50bn figure is a nice figure for tabloid readers to relate to as they have little knowledge.In reality Germany has made many multiples of that figure from the union and smaller countries who's economies were out of synch lost many multiples of that figure when the **** hit the fan.
Why bother showing an article from a tabloid anyway?

how many multiples of that figure do you reckon they have made from greece? cause thats really the only number that is relevant

Johnny Bitte

baaaa wrote: »

Where to start?
They believe that current events are being orchestrated by certain people for money.

Baaaa after going through 3 pages of your posts I can safely say you haven't a breeze about, well anything really and seem to not even read the posts of others.

If a country/government has no money they need to stop spending money and get more in through taxes.:rolleyes:

The Greek people are protesting because **** happens. Do some of them believe that by protesting their Government is going to give and spend the magical stock pile of cash they have hidden somewhere?

George Orwell 1982

To me it seems the whole system is collapsing. Even today Colm McCarthy was saying the Euro was in serious trouble. Who knows where all this will end?

“Our planet presently has a new form of chaos, a type that has never been seen before. It is a form of chaos that comes, not when the culture has the wrong leaders in its places of eldership, not when leaders need to be changed, but where the whole system of elders has collapsed, and the culture is falling apart and dissolving into chaos. You see it in many places on the earth.” (Robert Moore PhD, Chicago based Jungian Psychoanalyst)

baaaa

The_Goose135 wrote: »

Baaaa after going through 3 pages of your posts I can safely say you haven't a breeze about, well anything really and seem to not even read the posts of others.

If a country/government has no money they need to stop spending money and get more in through taxes.:rolleyes:

The Greek people are protesting because **** happens. Do some of them believe that by protesting their Government is going to give and spend the magical stock pile of cash they have hidden somewhere?

Haha I haven't a "breeze" about anything?And you are putting this down to "**** happens"?
Yeah,sure,you're right.

ejmaztec

baaaa wrote: »

Good aul germany,so friendly,always trying to make new buddies.
Germany is a mainly export driven economy,this is why they pushed so hard for the union.
The 50bn figure is a nice figure for tabloid readers to relate to as they have little knowledge.In reality Germany has made many multiples of that figure from the union and smaller countries who's economies were out of synch lost many multiples of that figure when the **** hit the fan.
Why bother showing an article from a tabloid anyway?

The Germans, being net mass contributors, were bound to be angry when they discovered that the Greeks were fiddling, lying through their teeth and being completely incompetent.

We should also be angry having to pay money that we haven't got, to bail out a bunch of crooks, when we're in enough trouble bailing out our own fiddling sheisters.

baaaa

George Orwell 1982 wrote: »

To me it seems the whole system is collapsing. Even today Colm McCarthy was saying the Euro was in serious trouble. Who knows where all this will end?

“Our planet presently has a new form of chaos, a type that has never been seen before. It is a form of chaos that comes, not when the culture has the wrong leaders in its places of eldership, not when leaders need to be changed, but where the whole system of elders has collapsed, and the culture is falling apart and dissolving into chaos. You see it in many places on the earth.” (Robert Moore PhD, Chicago based Jungian Psychoanalyst)

Bull****,repeat after me-If a country/government has no money they need to stop spending money and get more in through taxes

Guy:Incognito

You got to love the Greeks. " we're not the Irish, we won't take this" , " we demand public spending be maitained at unsustainable levels despite the tax take being way down, it's the only way out of the recession" what could possibly go wrong? Idiots.

Good thing things like riots don't cost the country money either.....


I assume they'll be protesting for their government to tell the eu no thanks and refuse the € 100b seeing as they are grand and don't need money?

baaaa

ejmaztec wrote: »

The Germans, being net mass contributors, were bound to be angry when they discovered that the Greeks were fiddling, lying through their teeth and being completely incompetent.

We should also be angry having to pay money that we haven't got, to bail out a bunch of crooks, when we're in enough trouble bailing out our own fiddling sheisters.

We should be angry cause we realise that we're in a worse situation than greece and cause we realise that we've all been robbed at the same time,not for those nonsense reasons you give.

ClutchIt

baaaa wrote: »

We should be angry cause we realise that we're in a worse situation than greece

Please somebody make this guy stop posting

Hells Belle

baaaa wrote: »

The 50bn figure is a nice figure for tabloid readers to relate to as they have little knowledge.In reality Germany has made many multiples of that figure from the union and smaller countries who's economies were out of synch lost many multiples of that figure when the **** hit the fan.
Why bother showing an article from a tabloid anyway?

50bn isn't even close to being right, according to the EU:
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/index_en.htm
Taxpayers' money is used by the Union to fund activities that all Member States and parliaments have agreed upon in the Treaties. A small amount – around 1% of the Union's national wealth, which is equivalent to about 235 Euro per head of the population – comes into the EU's annual budget and is then spent mainly for its citizens and communities.

Rough calculation:
Germany has 82m people X €235 = 19billion per annum X 59 years (1951) = one trillion one hundred twenty-one billion
Greece has 11m people X €235 = 2billion X 29 years (1981) = 58 billion
If I was German I'd be p1ssed off too.

George Orwell 1982

baaaa wrote: »

Bull****,repeat after me-If a country/government has no money they need to stop spending money and get more in through taxes

I'm not disputing this. I'm just saying that the whole system seems to be falling apart.

ejmaztec

baaaa wrote: »

We should be angry cause we realise that we're in a worse situation than greece and cause we realise that we've all been robbed at the same time,not for those nonsense reasons you give.

You should get out from under that bridge, and you may get a clue as to what's happening in the outside world.