The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
Greece has one of the lowest rates of public employment among OECD countries, with general government employing just 7.9% of the total labour force in 2008. This is a slight increase from 2000, when the rate was 6.8%.
can at least a microsopic part of these austerity policies do some good (devil's avocado), or are they 100% unremitting (heh) evil they seem?
if it's like italy, there's a lot of tax evasion, but when people see their tax money going to give emperor lifestyles to the politicians and little good services to the public they take the risk of not paying, justifying it by saying when they see tax money being spent better they'd be happier to pay taxes.
is it like that in greece?
corruption is so relative... in italy you'd get in serious trouble if you tried to bribe a cop for a traffic violation, in costa rica you'd get in more trouble if you didnt.
but everyone knows corruption is alive and well in the high echelons of italian state, organised crime and the MIC, utilities, energy companies, down to the local councils.
that book is being written every day. if austerity got rid of that, rather than teachers' salaries, pensions etc, we'd be out in the streets celebrating instead of protesting.
'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty
Transparency and accountability will get rid of corruption.
by gmoke - Nov 28
by gmoke - Nov 12 7 comments
by Oui - Dec 2
by Oui - Dec 18 comments
by Oui - Dec 1
by gmoke - Nov 303 comments
by Oui - Nov 3012 comments
by Oui - Nov 2837 comments
by Oui - Nov 278 comments
by Oui - Nov 2511 comments
by Oui - Nov 24
by Oui - Nov 221 comment
by Oui - Nov 22
by Oui - Nov 2119 comments
by Oui - Nov 1615 comments
by Oui - Nov 154 comments
by Oui - Nov 1319 comments
by Oui - Nov 1224 comments
by gmoke - Nov 127 comments
by Oui - Nov 1114 comments
by Oui - Nov 10