Greek Politics + Greekonomics

[Efs]

Okay, I don't fucking get economics. I understand the reasons for the people protesting, and some of the reasons as to why Greece is in debt. But surely that reason can't be so simple...I mean...I think I can handle not making a country go broke. Or is it more complicated than just adding, subtracting numbers and percentages?

Also, anyone follow Greek political parties? When I was younger I use to follow Chrysi Avgi because I thought Fascism was cool lol but SYRIZA looks pretty good to me. And Alexis Tsipras looks like a good bloke, apparently he supported some students absenteeism in high school without their parents permission, I thought that was neato lol.

LAOS is fucking stupid, for obvious reasons. ND and PASOK are just as bad. KKE sounds alright, but I'm not sure as to these parties on the Macedonian Naming Dispute? Not that it's a major big deal to me, and I don't want to sound like a nationalist.

[M3116]

Greek economics: being screwed
Nah, in all seriousness there's hardly anything left to do right? The people are about to their knees with taxes I'm assuming and EuroZone can't do much at all. I guess all that they would have left would be tourism. I think I heard, though, that inflation in Greece is on the decline. They must be doing something right. It will undoubtedly take longer to heal if at all than any other country in recession before them, and all the PIIG countries will come toppling down next. At least, in my mind.

Don't you live in Australia, though?

[Efs]

Yeah I live in Australia, I was born here too but I have a Greek background and have family there. But I don't get it, they had an easy life for years, payed no taxes, scammed the system pretty much and made all this money. Heck you could get an awesome high paying pension just after 25 years of work like my relative did. Now you can't do that, and the government is cracking down on those people. But I still don't get it. Like...how the fuck do you get over 300$bn in debt?

[HeartofShadows]

(02-21-2012 04:59 PM)Efs Wrote:  Yeah I live in Australia, I was born here too but I have a Greek background and have family there. But I don't get it, they had an easy life for years, payed no taxes, scammed the system pretty much and made all this money. Heck you could get an awesome high paying pension just after 25 years of work like my relative did. Now you can't do that, and the government is cracking down on those people. But I still don't get it. Like...how the fuck do you get over 300$bn in debt?

Bailing out banks who should have been arrested and allowed to fail.
What happens when your government is in bed with them.
Most of the bailouts didn't even go to the greek people and heck their government wantts to cut 30 billion more.

[Efs]

(02-22-2012 02:03 AM)HeartofShadows Wrote:  

(02-21-2012 04:59 PM)Efs Wrote:  Yeah I live in Australia, I was born here too but I have a Greek background and have family there. But I don't get it, they had an easy life for years, payed no taxes, scammed the system pretty much and made all this money. Heck you could get an awesome high paying pension just after 25 years of work like my relative did. Now you can't do that, and the government is cracking down on those people. But I still don't get it. Like...how the fuck do you get over 300$bn in debt?

Bailing out banks who should have been arrested and allowed to fail.
What happens when your government is in bed with them.
Most of the bailouts didn't even go to the greek people and heck their government wantts to cut 30 billion more.

I understand that, but a lot of the people didn't pay tax anyway. I think maybe it's both the fault of the people and the government but I dunno...

[UnschoolShqiponjë]

(02-22-2012 04:46 PM)Efs Wrote:  

(02-22-2012 02:03 AM)HeartofShadows Wrote:  

(02-21-2012 04:59 PM)Efs Wrote:  Yeah I live in Australia, I was born here too but I have a Greek background and have family there. But I don't get it, they had an easy life for years, payed no taxes, scammed the system pretty much and made all this money. Heck you could get an awesome high paying pension just after 25 years of work like my relative did. Now you can't do that, and the government is cracking down on those people. But I still don't get it. Like...how the fuck do you get over 300$bn in debt?

Bailing out banks who should have been arrested and allowed to fail.
What happens when your government is in bed with them.
Most of the bailouts didn't even go to the greek people and heck their government wantts to cut 30 billion more.

I understand that, but a lot of the people didn't pay tax anyway. I think maybe it's both the fault of the people and the government but I dunno...

It really depends. In current American society, most people are too inept at doing most anything useful. Taxing for public organizations is almost necessary though I hold the opinion that people became this crappy because of the fact that in their eyes "well the government will take care of it."

Also, like HoS said, the government needs to not be in bed with corporations or banks and IF it has any power in the market at all it should be incredibly minimal simply to enforce base regulations and prevent monopolies.

[HeartofShadows]

Quote:odious debt is a legal theory that holds that the national debt incurred by a regime for purposes that do not serve the best interests of the nation, should not be enforceable. Such debts are, thus, considered by this doctrine to be personal debts of the regime that incurred them and not debts of the state. In some respects, the concept is analogous to the invalidity of contracts signed under coercion.

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

[Thought Criminal]

Both sides are to blame. While big business and government had a part in it the people are just as guilty. I forget where I saw it or even much from the video but there was widespread corruption within the greek tax system. I remember one specific example the gave was on a pool tax (If you have a pool you shell out like $200 dollars a month minimum depending on its size) They had a list of all the people who denied having a pool on their taxes and then did an aerial survey of the streets they checked and of the 80% who claimed to not have a pool 60% of that original 100 did. (My statistics are a generalization, that's the gist of what the investigation came up with, Don't have time to look up the real ones ATM but will get back on that later)
While the government is MORE to blame here they aren't the sole perpetrators in this situation.

[UnschoolShqiponjë]

That is a fucking retarded ass tax. A pool tax? WTF? I needa see if we have one.