I'm very surprised there were no topics about this issue.. In Europe this is a huge thing now, actually. =o It's about Greece. So what happened? Greece had a referendum recently - the outcome is NO More here Yanis Varoufakis resigns More here Possible consequences of NO vote More here This was before the referendum itself, but it's relevant as the outcome of the referendum is a NO More here - TL;DR Referendum in Greece (do you accept proposals of Greece's creditors?), outcome is NO. Outcome means that Greece might have to leave the EU (Grexit).
Austerity was a joke that never worked in Greece. All the money went to the banks. Why should Greece have to continue to endure that?
Well, there are some pros and cons for voting yes (as there are for voting no). But yes, I agree, the banks completely screwed up. So unfortunate for the people, I hope it'll go alright with Greece. The future is uncertain now for Greece and the EU.
I've been distracted by the special snowflake club today so it kinda slipped my mind :lol: But in reality the Greeks have no one but themselves to blame, tax evasion is a culture there, the Greek tax revenue service shows that only 5000 people (from a population of 10m) earn €90k or more a year, right.... I said 4 years ago that of all the countries, Greece would be the one to fall on it's arse due to the air of arrogance and over valuation of self worth. It's the people individually who caused the situation, they want something for nothing and this inflation of worth only fuels it as they believe it's totally fine not to pay taxes, even if they managed to tackle half their tax evasion (evasion is different from avoidance) the debt would be paid off within 25 years. But no the Syriza just wanted to target the few people who were already paying, and not 'the workers' who make up the bulk of the population, even the government thinks it's OK to let 'working people' avoid paying tax just because they're working people. No, everyone has to pay their share regardless of who they are, small businesses make up the bulk of the Greek economy and the current socialist government focuses purely on the public sector and completely ignored the people who would lead the country out of crisis. I have not one ounce of sympathy for them, people say "it's the government, not the people" which is totally incorrect, it's the whole bloody country. They want debt relief but they will still carry on as they do which makes no progress, they say "Germany had it's war debt relieved" but forget Germany was occupied well into the 50's by the Allies and the Government was heavily scrutinised. I said it years ago, that the single currency has failed as they don't have the levers needed, they need to be able to devalue their currency and set inflation - the 2 most essential things for recovery. The only way Greece has of recovering is hitting the absolute bottom so the entire country realises their corrupt ideology and leaving the Euro so that it has the fiscal control it needs.
I dislike austerity as much as the next left leaning person, but I can see why they would have wanted to vote Yes, as well as No. It's going to be difficult for them no matter how they voted on this. This is why you shouldn't lie to get into the Eurozone.
I understand what you're saying here Foz. It's true, they also do have themselves to blame too. However, this huge debt is not everyone's fault. I'm not aware of the report that only 5000 earn €90k or more a year (and I'm not aware that the debt would be paid off within 25 years either (assuming they tackle half their tax evasion)). I do have sympathy for those who genuinely have nothing to do with it, but are now paying the price. I know someone from Greece and he told me (more than a year ago) that he knew people who lost their house due to the Greek debt crisis. That's not something I like, so I do feel sympathy for those people. Not sure if it's the only way, but I definitely agree that the people in Greece need to realise how much wrong has been done in the country. A lot of changes need to happen there. You voice exactly what I'm thinking too. No matter the outcome, it was a very difficult question. I even asked myself, what does this actually mean, the referendum? Not the theoretical meaning, but the implications. Even though newspapers give a lot of possible scenarios (including a Grexit), I'm still not sure what will happen now and whether the outcome plays a very significant role in it in the long run. That's very flattering of you lemons. :lol: But no, I study econometrics. I just happen to like these kind of things (politics, debates, certain things related to economics).
It's not a report per say 2 years ago The Guardian just used an EU FOI channel to find out the breakdown of reported income and the statistics the Greek revenue service released show that only 5000 people declared incomes of over €90,000, considering there are 21,000 practicing solicitors alone, you know that there are literally hundreds of thousands of people illegally evading tax by failing to report income. The ECB has reported that the Greeks can easily recover €12-15bn a year in tax evasion which is no small amount!
Great. Hm economics/politics - surely there's some overlap . On topic: I think they'd remain in the EU but without the euro.
They might leave the Eurozone, but will definitely stay in the Schengen zone and in EU. I also didn't expect them to improve from the start, the Germans and the French wanted the Greeks to behave rationally and change their ways. LOL They're Balkan for fs, it baffles me how anyone can expect them to be pragmatic. For the obvious reasons that didn't work and after five years on life support they're still not capable of paying their own debts that they made them themselves though lying and cheating.
My thoughts: 1. It is clear Greece needs help but I think first they need to show a bit of accountability and honesty. It is unfair of them to continually blame the EU and hold them as a boogeyman when it is clear they largely bought this crisis on themselves 2. Yanis Varoufakis (biker Voldemort) is just one big ego and can't have helped matters. It seemed he was propping up the idea that Greece had somehow been ridiculously hard-done to or were a victim of "bullying". 3. Why does a Greek Exit have to be a Grexit, why does a Britain Exit have to be a Brexit? It sounds so pretentious, who decided this rule! And what happens if Slovakia and Slovenia want to exit? How will we distinguish the Slexits? :lol:
...I've missed to say in previous posts that I've been to Athens and "Solun" and was pretty decent places to say the least. And: A bit unrelated but still : [YOUTUBE]pp78w2CrDrA[/YOUTUBE] Greeks need to keep maintaining that level of partying no matter what.
I may be reading biased sources, but it sounds like the Euro is a failure and Greece will be lucky to get away from it.
You are reading biased sources. The Euro itself isn't a failure, the European Union is structured impractically and worn down by nationalistic, stupid pride.
You are right about the EU being worn down by impracticality and nationalistic stupid pride, but none of it is to blame for Greece's problems. The initial problems were completely of their own making, and the current ones are because of their unwillingness to collaborate with the EU officials.
We weren't discussing Greece's problem, we were discussing whether the Euro as a currency is a failure. There have been plenty of economists who've stated that the demands made by the EU are unreasonable, unrealistic and damaging for Greece's prospects of economic recovery. Yes, Greece created this problem and still contributes to it, but the EU and IMF could also be a bit more reasonable and practical in their demands.
The EU and IMF are as reasonable as they can be. The Greeks have an enormous state apparatus that employs around 20 percent of the population of the country not mentioning higher number of state owned companies than half of Europe combined, when the crisis hit instead of taking care of their enormous tax evasion problems and reducing the number of people "employed" by the state, they just increased the taxes for the private industry. That was the single worst thing that they did. So, yeah, I'm not feeling sorry for them. You might see them as poor, poor people being pushed around by the Germans and the French, I see them as dead weight.
I don't know what to think of the issue. Personally, I thought Greece might have been kicked out when I heard they lied to get into Union. All I know is that austerity is not a good option because it slows down the country's income and makes it worse than when it started. I would know, mine is using those stupid methods as well as lying to the population to ''pay of the debt''.
No-one is disputing that the Greeks fucked up. There's a dispute as to how best fix the situation with an interest in rebuilding the Greek economy as they should not have to suffer for the incompetence of their leaders and previous generation of voters. I would apreciate it if you don't put words in my mouth. It' not conducive to a rational discussion.