Greek election – extreme left won

Somehow I think that a party promising 10,000 new public sector jobs probably isn’t the answer to the countries problems

Which tells you something about the electorate.

jambalaya – Member

@JY, its about accepting responsibility.

It’s about expecting every individual in a country to accept responsibility for something they may have had nothing to do with. Including a bunch that weren’t born. I look forward to you accepting responsibility for your neighbour’s credit card bill and the gambling debts of the dude that lived in your house before you.

I’ll give it a week

Amusing 😆 [ and stops bickering ] but its more like you and THM uniting to hate the Euro zone though it wont last as long as that love in 😛

Collectively he Greek people are a victim of no one except themselves.

I hope you’re a troll.

26% Unemployed.
60% Youth unemployment.
Wages down 38%
Pensions down 45%
32% Below the poverty line
33% with no access to healthcare
18% unable to meet their basic food needs
Number of corrupt politicians, bankers and industrialists in prison: 0
Amount of tax paid by shipping, construction and energy industries: 0

Still. They had it coming didn’t they! 🙄

I listened to an interview with the Syriza ecconomic representative this morning on R4, essentially the fella likely to take over Greece’s finances.
TBH what He was saying made perfect sense and seemed pretty conciliatory with the EU…

Basically the EU negotiated borrowing and repayment schedule for Greece is unsustainable, growing unemployment and homelessness is crippling the country, They don’t want out of the EU or the Euro, and they don’t want to shirk repaying their debts, but a collapsed Greece with rocketing debts wouldn’t exactly be a great advert for European integration, so they want to renegotiate the EU deal and actually try and stimulate their economy…

They Key point he made was that most of the EU loans never actually go into the Greek economy, they are passed straight onto servicing their lenders.
It’s not a particularly fantastic deal for anyone involved…

Time will tell, I’m interested to see where Greece goes once it leaves “Austerity” behind and tries to grow it’s way out of economic depression.

This is an interesting article
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/15/recessions-hurt-but-austerity-kills
Given the consequeces of further austerity for its citizens what should a greek government do ? Is “the market” the best arbiter. I don’t think so.

I heard that as well and thought the same cookeaa. He didn’t exactly sound like an anarchist, or some kind of communist.

What he was saying is that for any of this to be sustainable, in the long term, the one essential ingredient is economic growth. You can’t continue repayments with a constantly contracting economy. It just won’t work.

Which clearly demonstrates the constraints of modern capitalism, and the dearth of creativity in economic circles. When any deviation from the prevailing neo-liberal orthodoxy, no matter how slight, is immediately decried as heresy, and apocalyptic predictions ensue

Its hardly like its a system thats covered itself in glory over the last ten years. But politicians of all colours are inexplicably still in its thrall. Its tragic really.

The old Greek government were playing fast and loose with borrowed money but the Greek people kept voting them in to do it!….their welfare state was frankly ridiculous, early retirement was the norm, tax evasion was rife…but yeah, the electorate had nothing to do with it! 🙄

Greece will continue to be in this problem (under the EU or otherwise) unless their is a culture change, tax avoidance seems to be a national pastime…culturally that needs to change and that has to come from the people…people need to accept that they will work into their 60s like every other country, again this has to be accepted by the poeple or they will continually shoot themselves in the foot by voting for whatever pie-in-the-sky-party tells them they can have it all and retire early to boot….welfare will have to be less extravagant, again a government can put this in place but it comes to nothing if the electorate wont accept it and just vote the ‘nasty party’ out each time something is done to try and control debt…

…blaming governments is very easy but us idiots vote them in and then take an ‘ostrich with its head in the sand’ attitude to politics when the reality of what our economy can deliver is vastly different to our expectations.

One of the things that the chap on R4 said had to change was ‘tax immunity’ rather than evasion/avoidance.

Tax immunity and evasion[/url]

“The fact is that for the last 30-40 years, the rich in Greece has enjoyed a kind of tax immunity. They’re not really tax evaders, they’re immune from tax because of the cozy relationship that they have with politicians who legislate in a way that makes that tax immunity,”

Money for money, the devil for his own ‘It was the poor what done it!’

Amount of tax paid by shipping, construction and energy industries: 0

Did you read that Vanity fair article?
Amount of tax paid by the vast majority; 0
ALL of the doctors in Greece stated income of less than 12,000 euros to avoid tax. Everyone who possibly could was self employed and paid zero tax.
The public sector was hugely bloated; Railway workers earned 65,000 euros.
“Arduous” professions which qualified for early pensions (50 yrs) included hair dressers and radio announcers.
You’ve got to feel for the average Greek, but the majority are far from blameless.

The Same bloke did address that point deviant, it’s new broom time in Greece from the sounds of it, he talked about rooting out corruption at all levels IIRC, and TBH they do need to start actually paying their taxes, same as the Italians, they’ve made a national sport out of evading them.

Syriza are a pretty “Young” party formed in 2004 (from a Coalition of 13 smaller, broadly aligned, Leftwing parties, yes some are Marxist, etc)…

I think it’s an EU worldwide issue, most countries (UK included) have a bit of a problem with electing anyone under ~48 into senior any political positions, but why? the current lot of 50-60 somethings have not exactly been flawless…

Greece’s new President is only 40 (does that make him the youngest head of state in Europe?).
I think it will be good to see European politics start to include representatives from the generation really affected by their policies over the last 25 years, those who have grown up within the EU, not simply those who’ve presided over it’s creation and assumed they should just carry on governing…

Corruption and lack of innovation both become endemic in organisations where change doesn’t take place often enough and those at the top get a bit comfortable with the status quo. Greek politics and public office shows this, and the EU are in danger of sliding the same way, We need younger politicians Europe wide IMO… Discuss

This programme isn’t available anymore, it was quite entertaining though. The lady hairdresser retired at 50 on 90% of her pension as that business is classified as dangerous (all those chemicals don’t you know), she was bored so went back to work at the same salon cash in hand.

Channel 4: Go Greek for a week

It’s about expecting every individual in a country to accept responsibility for something they may have had nothing to do with. Including a bunch that weren’t born. I look forward to you accepting responsibility for your neighbour’s credit card bill and the gambling debts of the dude that lived in your house before you.

@Northwind, but the fundamental difference is that the national debt is acquired in the name of the nation including the as yet unborn, hence the cartoon I posted earlier.

but the shipping magnates, football club owners etc etc are still immune from tax while the nicely pensioned hairdresser has had all that slashed by order of brussles

@Northwind, but the fundamental difference is that the national debt is acquired in the name of the nation including the as yet unborn

It’s not really a difference at all. You can’t hold people responsible for something a government does. Next time you meet an old Russian man are you going to complain about Stalin? Of course not.

This is the real difference between right and left…

while the nicely pensioned hairdresser has had all that slashed by order of brussles

Nothing has been slashed though. They are just ensuring people pay their way, and the pansions were wildly out of synch with the reast of europe. Lending a country billions whilst allowing them to continue as before is crazy!
WRT football clubs etc; I’d bet Chelsea etc have tax “specialists” on their case too! It’s inexcusable, I agree.

The lady hairdresser retired at 50 on 90% of her pension as that business is classified as dangerous

You never answered my earlier question about whether you expect ordinary people to reject these generous salaries and pensions out of sense of social responsibility. Of course it’s ridiculous that a hair dresser can retire at 50 on 90% of her final salary, but do you blame the poor hair dresser for buying the snake oil or the con-artist selling it? It’s fraud, plain and simple, willingly executed by people in powerful positions so that they could enrich themselves and their friends. And as for the people ‘voting them in’, it’s not like they had a viable alternative is it? Until now Greece was a two party system where both parties were in on the fraud. Now there is an alternative, and the people have chosen it so presumably you’ll be celebrating?

as I understood it greek pensions had been cut by 50%, sounds like a slash to me, regardless of how out of kilter it may have been in the first place

I know that the Greeks were getting assistance in cooking the books completing their accounts from that bunch of crooks bastion of probity and integrity – Goldman Sachs* – but surely to god the powers that be in Brussels must have had some inkling of what was going on? Yet they still kept the money taps turned on?

Or if they didn’t know what was going on, it does beg the question, why the hell not?

* I reckon we can probably guess if anyone there has been held to account?

I imagine the accountants at goldman sachs swooped in and picked up a few islands on the cheap when it all wqent titsup

as I understood it greek pensions had been cut by 50%, sounds like a slash to me, regardless of how out of kilter it may have been in the first place

Fair enough, but I still won’t feel sorry for those who’ve not paid tax, and can retire at 50 on what is still a good government pension.

This is an old piece from Michael Lewis – 2010 – but it’s worth a read. The Greek railway is so expensive and inefficient it would be cheaper (in theory) to just pay for everyone to get a taxi. I don’t know how many government workers are now at food banks but they have certainly benefitted

These old chestnuts just get trotted out, exaggerated, and trotted out again. There’s really no point in trying to discuss something if these cliches are what inform your opinion.

@dazh

I hope you’re a troll.

Not all, just peaking my mind. @deviant posted what would have been my reply. I appreciate the human cost of repaying the debt is significant.

The old Greek government were playing fast and loose with borrowed money but the Greek people kept voting them in to do it!….their welfare state was frankly ridiculous, early retirement was the norm, tax evasion was rife…but yeah, the electorate had nothing to do with it!

You never answered my earlier question about whether you expect ordinary people to reject these generous salaries and pensions out of sense of social responsibility.

I get asked so many questions on these threads it’s hard to answer them all 😐
Well people have to take some responsibility for their decision to vote for a certain party. The fact is Greek politicians vied with each other to offer the most lucrative deals to the electorate. It’s bike like the mortgage crises here, people lied on their applications (ie committed fraud) and then said it was 100% the banks fault for making the loan. Truth is both parties where equally responsible in the Greek case and with the mortgage frauds.

FWIW and tbc (again for those who misrepresent) – I am pro Europe and the four pillars that lie at its heart. I am generally anti fixed exchange rates and especially where they are applied to regions that do not satisfy the conditions for an optimum currency area. Hence, for me, the € is an unsustainable folly.

The Europe project started well, then abandoned the pillars that support it and the structures it introduced. Like any house of sand, the results are inevitable. The only uncertainty is the timeline.

Binners I totally agree that those in Brussels and elsewhere knew pretty much exactly what was going on.

Fair enough, but I still won’t feel sorry for those who’ve not paid tax, and can retire at 50 on what is still a good government pension.

Looking forward to seeing your evidence for those claims. Do you know what public sector pensions are in Greece? What is the retirement age in Greece? Or are you just cutting and pasting from the Daily Mail?

Looking forward to seeing your evidence for those claims. Do you know what public sector pensions are in Greece? What is the retirement age in Greece? Or are you just cutting and pasting from the Daily Mail?

Well, you’re really doing so very well to present an anti argument 🙄
And, if you’d bother to read the Vanity Fair article which has been linked and mentioned a few times, you’d know how stupid that “daily mail” comment really is.

Before JY gets in and points it out, I couldn’t agree with you more THM. I’m also pro-Europe, thought not in its present anti-democratic guise. Its completely lost its way, and is now being held hostage by ideologies hell bent on a federal superstate (formed to represent the interests of them and their mates), no matter what the cost to its citizens.

But the single currency was a ridiculous idea from the outset, that was never ever going to work. It still isn’t going to work, and the only question now is how much much damage it will do to a sustainable European economy before it is inevitably abandoned. Its when, not if. Its been a disaster, and will only get worse. But those behind it refuse to accept all the evidence of their continued folly.

Gordon Brown’s legacy is pretty grim, but one thing he needs some credit for is being determined to keep us out of the car crash that is the Euro. Because if we’d been in it, we’d be well and truly screwed right now!

Forget the public sector, check out the annual reports of major Greek Banks and Corporates and see how many pension schemes are funded!!!

@Dr J, I used to work with/for Eleanor Amrosiadou she gave me her view on the Greek economy and how things actually worked. Like most wealthy Greeks she chose to live and work elsewhere as she couldn’t stand it. A lot of my viewpont was founded on conversations with her back in the mid 90’s. The Greeks used to boast about how they had the most entrepreneurial economy due to the high numbers of self employed but the reality is that being self employed is the best way to swerve taxes. The Channel 4 programme featured a doctor too. See my earlier post about my friend, he was asked to pay a bribe, he’s a stubborn so and so and has he money so he paid the higher amount and made sure he got receipts. This was a government employee asking for the money btw. Post the crises the Greeks introduced taxes collected via utility bills as other forms of tax collection are too easily avoided. As others have posted combined this with irrational levels of government spending on welfare and pensions and you have the recipe for the disaster that is Greece today.

The figure of 53 years old as an average retirement age is being bandied about. So much so, that it is has become folk-fact. It originates from a lazy comment on the New York Times website. It was then repeated by Fox News and printed in other publications. Greek civil servants have the option to retire after 17.5 years of service, but this is on half benefits. The figure of 53 is a misinformed conflation of the number of people who choose to do this (in most cases to go on to different careers) and those who stay in public service until their full entitlement becomes available.

Looking at Eurostat’s data from 2005 the average age of exit from the labour force in Greece (indicated in the graph below as EL for Ellas) was 61.7; higher than Germany, France or Italy and higher than the EU27 average. Since then Greece have had to raise the minimum age of retirement twice under bail-out conditions and so this figure is likely to rise further.

from here

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/world-affairs/2012/05/exploding-myth-feckless-lazy-greeks

It’s bike like the mortgage crises here, people lied on their applications (ie committed fraud) and then said it was 100% the banks fault for making the loan.

Voting for 1 of 2 incumbent parties in an election is vastly different to fraudulently completing a mortgage application! So to be clear you’re now accusing the Greek people of de-frauding themselves by not voting for a party that never existed at the time? Like I said, now there is an alternative, and they’ve voted for it, so you should be pleased with the result?

Its completely lost its way, and is now being held hostage by ideologies hell bent on a federal superstate (formed to represent the interests of them and their mates), no matter what the cost to its citizens.

I’m afraid it was ever so.

The EU idea was first conceived back in the 1920s by two senior officials of the League of Nations – Jean Monnet and Arthur Salter, a British civil servant – to be a United States of Europe, ruled by a government of unelected technocrats like themselves. Two things were anathema to them: nation states with the power of veto (which they had seen destroy the League of Nations) and any need to consult the wishes of the people in elections.

@dazh there are many parties in Greece, but I appreciate that pretty much all of them where intent on bribing the electorate. One justification I was given why so many people avoid tax there was that people felt the government was so corrupt and the state workers / pensioners had it so cushy that why should we fund that with our taxes ? I acknowledge your point but Syriza are IMO no different, they want to keep spending whilst at the same time writing off the debts from prior years of excess spending. They aren’t any different IMO, its the same flavour. The last government is what was different, trying to be responsible.

I acknowledge your point but Syriza are IMO no different, they want to keep spending whilst at the same time writing off the debts from prior years of excess spending.

The last government is what was different, trying to be responsible.

How ridiculous. In all your previous statements you deride the corrupt govt for bribing the people, and castigate the population for voting for them, then come out in support of the very same people who caused the problems! Which is it?

MSP – Member
from here

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/world-affairs/2012/05/exploding-myth-feckless-lazy-greeks

Basically the author is saying that the Greek govt/politicians are corrupted, crooks or behaving like mafia so should be the sole blame for their situation. Well, he seems to have all answers to their current situation doesn’t he? Explaining a way out by being emotional, presenting bar charts to justify etc rather typical of the Greek with talent for arguments.

The bottom line is that their situation is not the result of recent event (past 10 years) but rather the effect of generations of mismanagement that is embedded in their culture but there seem to be general (majority public I speculate) reluctant or complacent in accepting the fact that one day the shite might hit the fan once they joined the EU club. Now the reality set in and they have been found out. What can they do? No much really apart from going for the broke. i.e. more borrowing or get kick out either way they have nothing to loose.

😯

chewkw – Member
Explaining a way out by being emotional, presenting bar charts to justify etc rather typical of the Greek with talent for arguments.

😐

The EU idea was first conceived back in the 1920s by two senior officials of the League of Nations – Jean Monnet and Arthur Salter, a British civil servant – to be a United States of Europe, ruled by a government of unelected technocrats like themselves. Two things were anathema to them: nation states with the power of veto (which they had seen destroy the League of Nations) and any need to consult the wishes of the people in elections.

An article written by a loon who denies global warming, the risks of passive smoking and the dangers of asbestos
Forgive me for rejecting his analysis

as its a verbatim quote which is it not quoted and not sourced?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8886498/The-EUs-architects-never-meant-it-to-be-a-democracy.html

Lifer – Member

😐

Also do they have to greet everyone with the word ?????? ?

I mean now that ????? has hit the fan who is ?????? then eh?

🙄

@dazh, you’ve confused yourself. Thge last government (just defeated) was sorting the problem out by implementing the “austerity” measures, ie a budget the Greeks can afford but with massive EU assistance.

Perhaps Demis Roussos knew something about the likely Greek debt repayment schedule when he wrote this. RIP big fella.