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Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

vanityfair.com

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Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#51

Post by khafra »

StavrosK wrote: post #24
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>5 monasteries said that they evaluated the value of their properties at around 20b of today's euros (this is just for 5 monasteries). You can imagine how taxing the church would pay off a good chunk of the debt So are you proposing that they instigate a one-off property tax on everyone in Greece or just on the monasteries. The reason that 5 monasteries have so much valuable land is not necessarily that they are rich…

That's not what I said. I said they should tax the church's income.

To be fair, you were using the net worth of the church as a supporting argument for taxing its income, and the reply pointed out that much of their net worth is extraordinarly illiquid and uncorrelated with their income.

Limos and $30K hats certainly don't sound like priceless historic artifacts, though.

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#52

Post by mfukar »

oiuygtfrtghyju wrote: post #14
narkee wrote: post #3

Well written, although it reads more like an opinion piece than an objective report. If Greece were a business, it would become bankrupt and be dissolved. I guess that realistically can't happen for an entire country - but they really need a solid reboot.

Bankruptcy can happen for a country. Happy exporting something to Somalia and getting a Somali currency bank check as payment - No? It's trickier to go bankrupt if your country use somebody else's money. Would you sell to Greece and accept euros you can spend in Germany - Yes ?

True; expulsion (or leave) from a monetary union will also effect the euro considerably, and those issues (mistrust, bond revaluation, etc.) can quickly evolve in an avalanche effect. No sane person in the EU wants that.

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#53

Post by StavrosK »

khafra wrote: post #51
StavrosK wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I said. I said they should tax the church's income.

To be fair, you were using the net worth of the church as a supporting argument for taxing its income, and the reply pointed out that much of their net worth is extraordinarly illiquid and uncorrelated with their income. Limos and $30K hats certainly don't sound like priceless historic artifacts, though.

It was actually a poor segue, I meant for the two points to be unrelated, I googled a bit and found the link to the article and thought I'd posted it, as it shows that the church's argument that they're poor is false. I should have better clarified the wording, really...

Bear in mind that they rent much of the property to others and generate quite a bit of income that way. It's not just monasteries, they own whole blocks of buildings in Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities (I have no citation for that, sadly).

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#54

Post by Ratufa »

sx wrote: post #15

The article points out many of the problems of the greek economy, like: * The inflated public sector * The power of the unions over the government * The corruption in certain areas of the public sector (e.g. hospitals) * The loose observance of laws But it mischaracterizes several important points, as it is commons with articles that describe such complicated issues after a minimal exposure of the journalist to the s…

The problem with tax evasion in a democracy is that, when combined with a government's ability to borrow money, it removes the one of the main reasons why voters should care about how much the government spends. If you don't pay taxes, government spending is free money, at least until the debt burden becomes obviously unsustainable and things start falling apart as a result.

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#55

Post by nodata »

This is truly an excellent article. I've never read an article online of this length before where I haven't taken a break or switched tabs.

Having said that, the Vanity Fair website has a lot of fluff ("Which President Decorated the Oval Office Best?" anybody?). If they concentrated on quality articles like this one I'd subscribe in an instant.

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#56

Post by davidw »

sx wrote: post #30
jakarta wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you are arguing as if the Greek government is entitled to no taxes. Greece provides its citizens with loads of social services. Someone/something has to pay for that. In the other EU countries, you know - the ones without sovereign debt crises (Germany for example), the taxes paid by citizens help pay for some of those services. In Greece that doesn't happen because of the rampant tax evasion. So instead the gove…

Greece does not provide its citizens with more social services than other European countries, I would say that they actually provide less. And although you are right about the deficit, again, the main problem is the inflated public sector with all its associated problems, like high pensions at a young age. The private sector should not be burdened with this, and actually, it cannot afford to pay for this burden. If c…

It's not about more taxes, necessarily, it's that everyone should pay their "fair share", not some people pay 50%, and some wealthier people pay 0. If they think that is too high, they need to convince the politicians/electorate to lower the taxes. I can't just go steal stuff from the supermarket because I don't like the price.

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#57

Post by oiuygtfrtghyju »

mfukar wrote: post #52
oiuygtfrtghyju wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bankruptcy can happen for a country. Happy exporting something to Somalia and getting a Somali currency bank check as payment - No? It's trickier to go bankrupt if your country use somebody else's money. Would you sell to Greece and accept euros you can spend in Germany - Yes ?

True; expulsion (or leave) from a monetary union will also effect the euro considerably, and those issues (mistrust, bond revaluation, etc.) can quickly evolve in an avalanche effect. No sane person in the EU wants that.

Also physically a bit tricky. You would have to announce it in advance, to allow time for the new currency to be produced - in which time everybody would hoard euros. Then everyone waits for the new currency to fall like a stone, so nobody uses it, so no tax revenue.

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#58

Post by loewenskind »

gaius wrote: post #48
loewenskind wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Meanwhile, the high priests wear 30k euro hats and ride around in limousines. Remember this next time you see some big executive talking about how he needs tax cuts because he can't afford to hire employees. In other words, no matter how much someone makes, it never occurs to them that if they would make their insane excess a little less they could afford it.

I worked in investment banking for 5 years and I never saw anyone wearing a EUR 30k hat! Hell, Brioni or Kiton suits only come in at EUR 20k...

Have you never heard an executive complain about workers being expensive while being compensated several million per year?

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#59

Post by cynicalkane »

loewenskind wrote: post #58
gaius wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in investment banking for 5 years and I never saw anyone wearing a EUR 30k hat! Hell, Brioni or Kiton suits only come in at EUR 20k...

Have you never heard an executive complain about workers being expensive while being compensated several million per year?

If you're enough of a bigshot in a company large enough to pay you that kind of money, then yes, workers are expensive. Hundreds of workers are pricier than one executive.

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#60

Post by loewenskind »

cynicalkane wrote: post #59
loewenskind wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you never heard an executive complain about workers being expensive while being compensated several million per year?

If you're enough of a bigshot in a company large enough to pay you that kind of money, then yes, workers are expensive. Hundreds of workers are pricier than one executive.

Really? 300 workers making $30k/year is less than $10 million.
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