50% of Greece's Debt written off

Gummy Panda

sensibleken wrote: »

you missed out the bit where there is a massive increase in tax evasion as the ordinary greeks dont want to put up the money for a problem not caused by them, leading to the increased likelyhood of a 0% return.

In all fairness, there has always been massive tax evasion. They even had do to a campaign years ago along the lines of "Love Greece, ask for a receipt", because if you didn't get a receipt more then likely you weren't charged VAT.

upandcumming

Morlar wrote: »

slash and burn budget

Just lol.

billymitchell

Anybody know of any good articles that could explain to me how Greece got themselves into so much sh1t?

Crazy Horse 6

Mark200 wrote: »

I think Greece would much rather be in our situation.

Yeap they'd rather be paying it all off alright. We are a nation of sheep and we deserve the beating we are going to be taking for the next 10-20 years.

Thrill

billymitchell wrote: »

Anybody know of any good articles that could explain to me how Greece got themselves into so much sh1t?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8508136.stm

Why is Greece in so much trouble?
Greece has been living beyond its means in recent years, and its rising level of debt has placed a huge strain on the country's economy.
The Greek government borrowed heavily and went on something of a spending spree during the past decade.
Public spending soared and public sector wages practically doubled during that time.
However, as the money flowed out of the government's coffers, tax income was hit because of widespread tax evasion.
When the global financial downturn hit, Greece was ill-prepared to cope.
Greece's budget deficit, the amount its public spending exceeds its revenues from taxation, last year was 13.6% of its gross domestic product (GDP). GDP is the value of all its goods and services. This is one of the highest in Europe and more than four times the limit under eurozone rules.
Greece's high levels of debt mean investors are wary of lending it more money, and demand a higher premium for doing so.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/greeks-streets-violent-protests-economic-problems/story?id=10567233

A number of factors led to Greece's economic disaster. For more than a generation, Greece has been lax over its spending, paying out salaries on the government dime, with huge holiday bonuses.


Many employees were paid as though they'd worked a 14-month year, instead of 12. That extra money gave many Greeks a road to early retirement, for some even in their 50s.
And tax evasion was not only accepted but embraced by much of the population.

.

stovelid

Freddie59 wrote: »

There's a lesson in there somewhere.....

Go out and protest instead of moaning on boards about other people not protesting?

I am pie

Freddie59 wrote: »

And where is Ireland's such 'managed default'?

Why would we want one ? What is you think we'd get out of it ?

If your labouring under the misunderstanding that somehow the Greeks won't be subject to extremely challenging budget cuts as part of this default then you're just plain wrong.

Man on Fire

Do we riot now or after........
http://youtu.be/L5ntfgdk-xk

billymitchell

Thrill wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8508136.stm




http://abcnews.go.com/WN/greeks-streets-violent-protests-economic-problems/story?id=10567233







.

Cheers for that. So it looks like they had their own version of Fianna fail in government. Must read up a bit on the power of unions over there or why the hell the spent so bloody much.

I wonder is there a Greek equivalent to Eddie Hobbes or Dave McWilliams?

mike65

The Greek Finance dept used to fly a helicopter over Athens and map the swimming pools and such like, then they'd check the tax compliance of the registered owner of the property. Its that kind of place.

billymitchell

mike65 wrote: »

The Greek Finance dept used to fly a helicopter over Athens and map the swimming pools and such like, then they'd check the tax compliance of the registered owner of the property. Its that kind of place.

But thats the kind of thing you would expect our lot to be at

mikom

billymitchell wrote: »

But thats the kind of thing you would expect our lot to be at

We have potholes in the west that could be mistaken for swimming pools.
Could get very confusing.

Freddie59

I am pie wrote: »

Why would we want one ? What is you think we'd get out of it ?

If your labouring under the misunderstanding that somehow the Greeks won't be subject to extremely challenging budget cuts as part of this default then you're just plain wrong.

Look at the posts above you. There is a description of Greece as 'living beyond its means' and 'widespread tax evasion'. Is ireland any different?

For living beyond your means write an €18Bn deficit - something which everyone is ignoring. We need the same budgetary measures as Greece. And they WILL happen - despite the protestations of the Left.

The difference will be that Greece will have had its debt slashed by 50% - but Ireland won't.

melekalikimaka

Freddie59 wrote: »

Something has to give - and it will have to be SW and PS pay/numbers.

QUOTE]

BINGO

humanji

Freddie59 wrote: »

Look at the posts above you. There is a description of Greece as 'living beyond its means' and 'widespread tax evasion'. Is ireland any different?

For living beyond your means write an €18Bn deficit - something which everyone is ignoring. We need the same budgetary measures as Greece. And they WILL happen - despite the protestations of the Left.

The difference will be that Greece will have had its debt slashed by 50% - but Ireland won't.

You're underestimating how corrupt Greece is. It makes Ireland look honest. We are not even close to being in the same position as them. They can't pay their debts and get a 50% reduction. But they still can't pay their debts and are screwed for decades. We can pay our debts, but it'll be painful for a hell of a lot less time.

Celly Smunt

Greece is pretty much falling into prostitution,i don't want to be no prostitute so we're better off.

Yakult

I smell a protest comi................. Ah never mind, forgot this was Ireland. We'll just sit back and take it up the ass without any lube.

blackwhite

sensibleken wrote: »

you missed out the bit where there is a massive increase in tax evasion as the ordinary greeks dont want to put up the money for a problem not caused by them, leading to the increased likelyhood of a 0% return.

The Greek deficit is primarily due to the Government spending well above what it was taking in, and not due to bank debts.
The Greek government spent the best part of the past decade hiding it's debts, and under-reporting its expenditure. The Greek people have been living off the benefits of this state-conducted fraud.
One of the factors that lead to the Greek deficit was large-scale and widespread tax evasion, coupled with the government showing little interest in enforcing its tax laws. Ordinary Greeks not paying their taxes was a large part of the problem.
The Greek have shown an amazing ability to blame everyone but themselves for their own problems, and their protests are because they are now being asked to actually foot some of the bill for their own excesses.

mikom

Was in Athens about 3 weeks ago.
Absolute shithole, grubby, graffiti daubed, not a cut of work in most of the moped driving leather jacket wearing posers over there, others living under motorway underpasses, stinks to high heaven, dogs flat on footpaths..... I could go on....
They are lucky they have history as they have fuck all else that appeals to me.
Give me Ireland any day

billymitchell

mikom wrote: »

We have potholes in the west that could be mistaken for swimming pools.
Could get very confusing.

Shirley when they were flying down to the Galway tents every year in teh Govt helicopter, they would have seen those and done something about it. I dunno, filled them in with our money

From the wikipedia

Greece has the EU's lowest Corruption Perceptions Index, Index of Economic Freedom and Global Competitiveness Index, ranking 78th, 88th and 90th in the world respectively. Corruption, together with the associated issue of poor standards of tax collection, is widely regarded as both a key cause of the current troubles in the economy and a key hurdle in terms of overcoming the country's debt problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Greece

blackwhite

Michael Lewis' new book Boomerang has a very interesting chapter on Greece, an extract is on the link below:

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010


It was included in Sunday Times magazine a few weeks back.

.....Add it all up and you got about $1.2 trillion, or more than a quarter-million dollars for every working Greek. Against $1.2 trillion in debts, a $145 billion bailout was clearly more of a gesture than a solution. And those were just the official numbers; the truth is surely worse. “Our people went in and couldn’t believe what they found,” a senior I.M.F. official told me, not long after he’d returned from the I.M.F.’s first Greek mission. “The way they were keeping track of their finances—they knew how much they had agreed to spend, but no one was keeping track of what he had actually spent. It wasn’t even what you would call an emerging economy. It was a Third World country.”.....

hightower1

Ah ffs. This thread equates to .....

"How come yer mans getting the dole, pffft, free money each week for not working"
... Yeah, your not getting a hand out cause you work? No , your not getting a hand out cause your better off.


Isnt that the entire point of the EU? The stong help the weak in times of need so in the end we all end up with a fairer and better average quality of life? It doesnt negate who is to blame for the current issues but whinging about someone getting more than us when ultimatly we ARE better off than them just bangs of tight arses whinging "want want want gimme gomme gimme"

V_Moth

"Living beyond your means" - a wonderful propaganda phrase beloved of those who want to insinuate that the entire population is to blame. So who in Greece is responsible? A large chunk of blame has to go to Goldman Sachs who colluded with the Greek government in hiding the true extent of budget deficits.

Certainly the EU must shoulder some blame as well for not checking the Greek budget and allowing its entry into the Eurozone. Similarly for allowing ECB to give stupidly low interest rates.

But I suppose it is always easier to blame the population as a whole, especially if you do not know the country or its (recent) history.

I am pie

Freddie59 wrote: »

Look at the posts above you. There is a description of Greece as 'living beyond its means' and 'widespread tax evasion'. Is ireland any different?

For living beyond your means write an €18Bn deficit - something which everyone is ignoring. We need the same budgetary measures as Greece. And they WILL happen - despite the protestations of the Left.

The difference will be that Greece will have had its debt slashed by 50% - but Ireland won't.

Tax avoidance in Ireland is nowhere close to Greece. Have a quick google, you'll be convinced of that after a very cursory review of your findings. Similarly so for the budget cuts required. All of that is academic in terms of the OP.

The budget cuts are not a result of rioting. We can't gurn and rock-throw our way to a default. If we were stupid / ill informed we could decide to but the benefit of paying off 50% of our debt would be absolutely dwarfed by the issues caused by defaulting.

Ireland needs credit to function, none would be forthcoming. Ireland would no longer be able to function.

DoneDL

So the Greeks lied about their economy to gain entry to the Euro, got lots of money, spunked it and now don`t have to pay it all back. Trojan horse please.

leonidas83

mikom wrote: »

Was in Athens about 3 weeks ago.
Absolute shithole, grubby, graffiti daubed, not a cut of work in most of the moped driving leather jacket wearing posers over there, others living under motorway underpasses, stinks to high heaven, dogs flat on footpaths..... I could go on....
They are lucky they have history as they have fuck all else that appeals to me.
Give me Ireland any day

Please do, im interested to see why the whole EU could now be ****ed for a long time

Chucky the tree

If Greece has it so lucky you should really consider moving over there then OP.

Thrill

blackwhite wrote: »

Michael Lewis' new book Boomerang has a very interesting chapter on Greece, an extract is on the link below:

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010


It was included in Sunday Times magazine a few weeks back.

It's a long, long article. Was worth reading though.

The national railroad has annual revenues of 100 million euros against an annual wage bill of 400 million, plus 300 million euros in other expenses.

The average state railroad employee earns 65,000 euros a year. Twenty years ago a successful businessman turned minister of finance named Stefanos Manos pointed out that it would be cheaper to put all Greece’s rail passengers into taxicabs: it’s still true.

“We have a railroad company which is bankrupt beyond comprehension,” Manos put it to me. “And yet there isn’t a single private company in Greece with that kind of average pay.”

Oddly enough, the financiers in Greece remain more or less beyond reproach. They never ceased to be anything but sleepy old commercial bankers.

Virtually alone among Europe’s bankers, they did not buy U.S. subprime-backed bonds, or leverage themselves to the hilt, or pay themselves huge sums of money. The biggest problem the banks had was that they had lent roughly 30 billion euros to the Greek government—where it was stolen or squandered.

In Greece the banks didn’t sink the country. The country sank the banks.

The scale of Greek tax cheating was at least as incredible as its scope: an estimated two-thirds of Greek doctors reported incomes under 12,000 euros a year—which meant, because incomes below that amount weren’t taxable, that even plastic surgeons making millions a year paid no tax at all.

The problem wasn’t the law—there was a law on the books that made it a jailable offense to cheat the government out of more than 150,000 euros—but its enforcement. “If the law was enforced,” the tax collector said, “every doctor in Greece would be in jail.”


I laughed, and he gave me a stare. “I am completely serious.” One reason no one is ever prosecuted—apart from the fact that prosecution would seem arbitrary, as everyone is doing it—is that the Greek courts take up to 15 years to resolve tax cases. “The one who does not want to pay, and who gets caught, just goes to court,” he says.

mikom

mikom wrote: »

Was in Athens about 3 weeks ago.
Absolute shithole, grubby, graffiti daubed, not a cut of work in most of the moped driving leather jacket wearing posers over there, others living under motorway underpasses, stinks to high heaven, dogs flat on footpaths..... I could go on....
They are lucky they have history as they have fuck all else that appeals to me.
Give me Ireland any day

leonidas83 wrote: »

Please do, im interested to see why the whole EU could now be ****ed for a long time

A few "highlights" from the trip..... http://oi40.tinypic.com/xoksjk.jpg

ebbsy

At least we can sit back and wallow in the knowledge that there is a country more f**ked than us.