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In Greece, Property Is Debt

nytimes.com

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Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#61

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

Greeks don't have complete sovereignty in the EU. They've repeatedly voted for that arrangement (I happen to think it's a terrible one).

But the parent comment alleges a breakdown of the international system meriting, as I read it, global revolution. Given that we're in something of a golden age of humanity--what with record-low rates of per-capita violent-death rates, relative economic prosperity and technological advantage--the claim needs more than a First World country experiencing hardships around paying property taxes.

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#62

Post by ferongr »

Luc wrote: post #33
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.

One of the comments on the article claims there's 0% tax up to 200k property value. Is this incorrect?

Yes, since I pay the tax any the property value in my name is just that apartment. All owners have to pay this tax (ENFIA). There are some reductions for unemployed people but no 0% rates.

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#63

Post by krona »

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

Why the downvotes?

"Elections change nothing. There are rules." -- Wolfgang Schäuble (in reference to the election of a Greek government in 2015)

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#64

Post by rglullis »

webscaleizfun wrote: post #21
elcct wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think faults in each country have one thing in common - socialism and excessive bureaucracy that comes with it.

Its still extremely dangerous to give birth in the US when compared to Greece, our maternal death rate is 7x higher [1], on par with Iran, Hungary and Saudi Arabia. [1] - http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=2223

What a horrible display of "Lies, damn lies, and statistics."

0,021% death rate is far from "extremely dangerous", and why the focus on this one specific chart? Amazing cherry-picking you've done.

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#65

Post by Kurtz79 »

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…

"That and other things (domino effect, if Greece gets forgiveness, the other countries would want it too) mean it is in the EUcrats' best interest to see Greece fail."

There is zero interest from EU leaders to see Greece fail.

Otherwise they would have to justify to their voters the fact of having bailed out the country multiple times, with no result. It would also cause additional instability and volatility, possibly unraveling an already unstable Union.

The best result for them would be for Greece to recover under the austerity policies they are enforcing, but it's clear that this is not going to happen (at least any time soon, and without additional pain and suffering for Greece).

Whether the reason is that these policies are wrong in themselves (which is Krugman's/Greece's point of view), or the problem lies in Greece's failure of enforcing them (which is the EU point of view), personally I'm not sure.

As always the answer probably is somewhere in the middle.

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#66

Post by saiya-jin »

> "And yet, the leftist government recently proposed adding further documents and costs to selling or renting property — a compulsory “energy performance” certificate and a civil engineer’s assurance that there are no illegal constructions."

Not an expert, nor a citizen/resident, but these seem like a basic things to do. Parents back home had to provide same things recently just for renovation, and much more.

There are laws to address this, albeit considered kind of a joke in southern Europe for a long time. People would build whatever they wanted, hack together unsafe constructions to cut costs, then bribe an official to validate all of that. Then earthquake comes and people die. Standards for buildings are reactions to disasters, I don't see anything wrong with it.

Or am I missing something?

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#67

Post by lifeisstillgood »

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.

That is the generally accepted view of the Greek crisis in much of Europe

- The Euro hid huge debts in the same way securitised debt did in US. People would lend (via bonds) to risky countries (Greece and Spain) at the same EuroBond rate they lent to less risky countries (Germany, and well just Germany).

And Greece took this and spent - at first on good infrastructure but slowly on low performing roads to nowhere and a lot on non capital spending (social welfare) And particular Greek social Problems made it far worse (a political class removed from the populace, etc)

As the crisis hit Greece could not repay these huge debts and could not devalue their currency (the Euro was not theirs). And they got loans from Germany (cos a lot of German banks owned the A rated bonds) and paid interest with the loans thus doing nothing to solve the problem. After a few years of this the Greek people voted in a whole new radical party. The goal was to cancel the impossible to pay debt and follow sensible Keynesian rebuilding. The cancelling of the debt (spearheaded by charismatic economist Yanis Varoufakis) was not insane but it would mean all other countries in similar problems would also follow suit. So the Big players in Euro (Schable being the biggest) opposed it everyway they could. The Greeks took it to the brink but the PM could not plunge Greece into leaving the Euro and not being able to keep hospitals open backed down

No solution - and we end up here

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#68

Post by yagodragon »

I live in Greece and things are bad but as a matter of fact, the real problem is that we ,the Millennials, feel that we're screwed because we compare ourself with our parents. Our parents and our politicians really scammed the whole europe into believing that we have a strong economy but the truth is that everyone avoided paying taxes, they got huge loans that could never pay of and our politicians where really corrupted ,as well. The result was that our parents made a fair amount of wealth without having the skills and the education of the rest of europeans. They worked hard, but they lived in a bubble. I believe that the biggest problem in Greece is that right now we are in a declining economy and probably wont succeed economically as our parents did. We are going from high to low and we cant see whats following.

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#69

Post by mvindahl »

SamUK96 wrote: post #34

This is what happens when you allow uncontrolled and unregulated asset transfers. There's a reason that pretty much any index/stock in the world freezes when the daily drop exceeds a certain threshold (i.e. Japan, JPX, has a limit of usually ~7% [1]). This prevents panic selling and even though seems like a "delaying-the-inevitable-drop" cop-out, it really does work. Greece Government are stupid as hell for letting e…

I'm not sure that it would be just as easy to do this for houses. Freezing the market for a day would have little effect. Freezing it for years would be a very real nuisance.

Besides, I'd like to question the conventional wisdom that falling stock markets or falling housing markets are a problem which justifies government intervention. Another view on the same phenomenon is that your cash just increased in value. Like when prices go up, some people will lose money, some people will win money. In the end it's a zero sum game.

Re: In Greece, Property Is Debt

#70

Post by mfukar »

nerdponx wrote: post #11

Why have taxes been rising? To pay off all that debt?

Contrary to what most people would have you believe, the EU has asked Greece to bring its economy in line with certain KPIs. The Greek governments have decided the best way to do that is tax the populace.

The results are well understood.

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