In Greece, Property Is Debt • Hacker News Board

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#51

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:35 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #15

DickingAround wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this comment. What about this article makes you think the Greeks can't make decisions for themselves? Is their land unsuitable for farming, and manufacture, and services? Did someone setup an embargo against them? Furthermore, the idea of needing to overhaul things at a global level makes many assumptions. For example, that anyone has the authority and intelligence to tell the entire world how it s…

Decisions for themselves? Hah. It's not in the article, but Schäuble and the other EU finance ministers have set out to make an example out of Greece, or the apparatchiks just don't like the radical lefties that got into power. Paul Krugman has mused, before, EUcrats could tell government officials what to do, and when they follow them, even if the country fails and they get voted out, they'd get cushy EU jobs. But t…

[deleted]

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#52

Post by ferongr » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:36 PM UTC

webscaleizfun wrote: post #32

ferongr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably do. My apartment was made in 1963, 63sqm (670sqft). "Zone price" (i.e. what the government considers the price of 1 sqm of development in a certain region) is 1100 euros, building age multiplier for that is 0.60 so we end with a 660 euro/sqm pric, for a total assessment of 41580 euros. I'd be lucky if I got half of that If I actually tried to sell it at the moment.

What area are you in? Compared to Seattle/Portland/San Diego prices, 40k euros seems cheap for a 1963 670sqft apt. A similar house in Tacoma would run 110k euros right now, and it is a terrible location.

It's in Kallithea, a generic south-European concrete-jungle urban center. Also, I'm not sure it's fair to compare property values between the US and Greece. The average person working on the private sector would be lucky if he made $10000/year at this point in time.

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#53

Post by sgift » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:37 PM UTC

webscaleizfun wrote: post #23

nannal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is the rare case when refactoring just doesn't cut it, we need a complete rewrite of the whole thing. Does anyone have access to the world government dev environment? I mean the code may need re-writing but we could probably use the same infrastructure.

Well, you've got this amazing compiler that just likes to change things you write, they're known as politicians :P

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_programming_lang... ?

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#54

Post by Swinx43 » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:37 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #15

DickingAround wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this comment. What about this article makes you think the Greeks can't make decisions for themselves? Is their land unsuitable for farming, and manufacture, and services? Did someone setup an embargo against them? Furthermore, the idea of needing to overhaul things at a global level makes many assumptions. For example, that anyone has the authority and intelligence to tell the entire world how it s…

Decisions for themselves? Hah. It's not in the article, but Schäuble and the other EU finance ministers have set out to make an example out of Greece, or the apparatchiks just don't like the radical lefties that got into power. Paul Krugman has mused, before, EUcrats could tell government officials what to do, and when they follow them, even if the country fails and they get voted out, they'd get cushy EU jobs. But t…

This is a really good talk that will give some valuable insight into how Greece has been bullied. (YANIS VAROUFAKIS | NOAM CHOMSKY, NYPL, 26 April) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szIGZVrSAyc

More than 90% of the bailout money went to banks, not to Greece. Bank recapitalization via the back door while blaming Greece.

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#55

Post by tome » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:37 PM UTC

webscaleizfun wrote: post #32

ferongr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably do. My apartment was made in 1963, 63sqm (670sqft). "Zone price" (i.e. what the government considers the price of 1 sqm of development in a certain region) is 1100 euros, building age multiplier for that is 0.60 so we end with a 660 euro/sqm pric, for a total assessment of 41580 euros. I'd be lucky if I got half of that If I actually tried to sell it at the moment.

What area are you in? Compared to Seattle/Portland/San Diego prices, 40k euros seems cheap for a 1963 670sqft apt. A similar house in Tacoma would run 110k euros right now, and it is a terrible location.

ferongr is in Greece presumably. Compared to UK prices (at least in the south east) 110k euros is phenomenally cheap itself.

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#56

Post by mfukar » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #15

DickingAround wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this comment. What about this article makes you think the Greeks can't make decisions for themselves? Is their land unsuitable for farming, and manufacture, and services? Did someone setup an embargo against them? Furthermore, the idea of needing to overhaul things at a global level makes many assumptions. For example, that anyone has the authority and intelligence to tell the entire world how it s…

Decisions for themselves? Hah. It's not in the article, but Schäuble and the other EU finance ministers have set out to make an example out of Greece, or the apparatchiks just don't like the radical lefties that got into power. Paul Krugman has mused, before, EUcrats could tell government officials what to do, and when they follow them, even if the country fails and they get voted out, they'd get cushy EU jobs. But t…

> But the current Greek government don't want cushy EU jobs, they want to save the population.

Well, they saved me by forcing me out of the country, so +1 there.

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#57

Post by pdkl95 » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #26

netsharc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decisions for themselves? Hah. It's not in the article, but Schäuble and the other EU finance ministers have set out to make an example out of Greece, or the apparatchiks just don't like the radical lefties that got into power. Paul Krugman has mused, before, EUcrats could tell government officials what to do, and when they follow them, even if the country fails and they get voted out, they'd get cushy EU jobs. But t…

Just so I'm clear, you are claiming that the finance ministers are purposely rigging things so that Greece will fail -- that all those loans and such were part of a plan to make an example out of them. First I've heard of this, but I haven't been following it. It sounds quite far-fetched though. I must be missing something.

> claiming that the finance ministers are purposely rigging things so that Greece will fail

> First I've heard of this

I suggest listening[1] to Yanis Varoufakis talk about his negotiations with the rest of the EU's finance ministers. He talks about the rigged process, and the ultimatum they gave him when he pushed for a saner refinancing plan. Schäuble's response, according to Mr. Varoufakis, was "Elections cannot be allowed to change the economic policies applied to Greece!"

For background on how this situation was created, see Mark Blyth's very nice discussion[2] of the Greek situation and how it fits in with the larger Euro problem.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihVcrnFag1s#t=672

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6vV8_uQmxs#t=778

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#58

Post by andmarios » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

imaginenore wrote: post #2

The article mentions the word "tax" 14 times, but it never says what it actually is. How bad is it?

You have to factor in that we have an extremely high unemployment rate (23.5%) and after the austerity measures the basic wage is about 550 euro/month. Many, if not most, companies took advantage of this basic wage change and forced it upon their employees or replaced them with new ones (which can't ask for more). Also another big part of the workforce is on flexible-hours, which means they may go as low as 120 euro per month.

The property tax can be about 200 euro / year for relatively small apartments in lower class neighborhoods and rise pretty fast (e.g 800 euros / month) for better neighborhoods. If you own the land (you aren't leaving in an apartment) things go south even faster.

Also the property tax doesn't consider any special cases. For example you could have build your house 60 years ago in a remote location, now rich people came to leave around you and you have to pay 6000 euros / year on a 600 euro / month pension.

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#59

Post by pjmorris » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

cloudjacker wrote: post #30

DickingAround wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this comment. What about this article makes you think the Greeks can't make decisions for themselves? Is their land unsuitable for farming, and manufacture, and services? Did someone setup an embargo against them? Furthermore, the idea of needing to overhaul things at a global level makes many assumptions. For example, that anyone has the authority and intelligence to tell the entire world how it s…

Where have you been for the whole decade There is no self determination possible for Greece

It is astonishingly sad to me that the country from which Democracy was exported no longer has a say (or do they?)

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#60

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:39 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #15

DickingAround wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this comment. What about this article makes you think the Greeks can't make decisions for themselves? Is their land unsuitable for farming, and manufacture, and services? Did someone setup an embargo against them? Furthermore, the idea of needing to overhaul things at a global level makes many assumptions. For example, that anyone has the authority and intelligence to tell the entire world how it s…

Decisions for themselves? Hah. It's not in the article, but Schäuble and the other EU finance ministers have set out to make an example out of Greece, or the apparatchiks just don't like the radical lefties that got into power. Paul Krugman has mused, before, EUcrats could tell government officials what to do, and when they follow them, even if the country fails and they get voted out, they'd get cushy EU jobs. But t…

[deleted]