Greece: Of paupers and taxes | 143 comments (143 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Greece: Of paupers and taxes (4.00 / 7)

And yet...
I keep hearing people explaining to me how Germans are justifiably fed up with paying for everyone else, that public finance should at long last be put under control by all the non-virtuous. Then when I try to point out that this does not match the recent years records, I will be told that in Greece there are entire villages full of Porsches that did not pay a single euro in income tax over the past few years.

I don't know where they got the story, but it must have been in one of the very serious sources as totally independent people reported it.

Well, I can't easily prove a negative (other than checking Greece's accounts to check that no village paid zero on income tax, or visiting all those who did to check that they are not full of Porsches), but when I did very briefly go to Greece last year, I saw anything but a country enjoying a rich life on German funds. It looked undoubtedly poor -and yet I did not leave rather touristic areas. I shudder to think what it would have been had I had time to see the remote areas.

But they just know that those villages are all over the place. That Greece (and Spain, and Portugal) must be whipped into good behaviour.
I find it entirely plausible that the EU circles of power could let it go all the way to total humanitarian disaster (and I mean worse than Russia in the 1990s -after all, Russia had its own currency AND a lot of mineral resources) without ever reassessing their fantasies. Unless Greeks are finally allowed to revolt. But they sure are doing their best to make that unlikely, if not impossible.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Fri Feb 15th, 2013 at 12:52:03 PM EST

Re: Greece: Of paupers and taxes (4.00 / 6)

This is the Porsche urban legend put to rest by Diomidis Spinellis who ran the Finance Ministry Information Systems'administration for 2 years and who should know (also: possibly registered here at the European Tribune IIRC).

One of the annoying aspects of this whole crisis is that urban legends and various exaggerated claims like this, originate often from the neolib economic / political establishment, people who have no clear idea of what is happening in Greece outside Athens' and Thessaloniki's poshest neighborhoods, and have never been in the vicinity of the poorest members of their society without being surrounded by armed bodyguards...

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

by talos (mihalis at gmail dot com) on Fri Feb 15th, 2013 at 01:09:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Greece: Of paupers and taxes (4.00 / 3)

Even the poshest neighbourhoods never matched the posh bits of London or Paris - or Dublin. It's a justifying myth, easy to believe because it justifies being total selfish dicks.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Feb 15th, 2013 at 02:07:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Greece: Of paupers and taxes (4.00 / 4)

I find it entirely plausible that the EU circles of power could let it go all the way to total humanitarian disaster (and I mean worse than Russia in the 1990s -after all, Russia had its own currency AND a lot of mineral resources) without ever reassessing their fantasies. Unless Greeks are finally allowed to revolt.

Ever the optimist, you forget that a Greek revolt will be taken as evidence that those swarthy southerners cannot rule themselves, not to a reassessment of received wisdom.

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Feb 16th, 2013 at 01:30:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Greece: Of paupers and taxes (none / 0)

Oh, no, I didn't forget that. I'm quite sure that a revolt would strengthen their myths.

But it might avert a total humanitarian disaster if it happens soon enough.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Sat Feb 16th, 2013 at 04:11:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Or be one (n/t) (none / 0)

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Feb 16th, 2013 at 04:52:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Or be one (n/t) (none / 0)

Well, indeed.
That's the horror that refusal to reassess your fantasies under any circumstance tend to lead to. I am not, by nature, inclined to wish for revolution, but I also reckon that if you give an entire people no option other than violence, quite a few will choose it.

And I would find it hard to blame them when they do.

I know you've covered that extensively recently.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Sat Feb 16th, 2013 at 05:20:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Greece: Of paupers and taxes (none / 0)

For that matter, a complete humanitarian catastrophe is at this stage no longer avoidable. It's been what? Four years by now? Interpolating from the Russian experience with austerity, you'd expect austerity to kill around one percent of your population over a decade. Depending on how you estimate and how you count causes of death, austerity-related complications are probably the third or fourth leading cause of death in Greece over the course of the present depression.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Feb 16th, 2013 at 10:35:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Greece: Of paupers and taxes (none / 0)

Yes, I'm aware of that. I just fear it could get much worse than what's already there.

The 1% over a decade is probably back-loaded so we haven't seen much of it yet. Plus the impact in Greece could end up being bigger than in Russia.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Sat Feb 16th, 2013 at 12:51:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Greece: Of paupers and taxes (none / 0)

Even if excess mortality increases linearly (meaning that five years of austerity would give only a quarter of the aggregate excess fatalities of ten years), that would still make austerity the third or fourth leading cause of death (after cardiovascular conditions, cancer and maybe infectious disease) over the course of the present depression.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Feb 16th, 2013 at 02:41:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Greece: Of paupers and taxes (none / 1)

So that's where all our welfare queens went. And they traded in their Cadillacs for Porsches? Maybe there's something to this whole austery promotes growth thing after all.

Now where are we going and what's with the handbasket?

by budr on Tue Feb 19th, 2013 at 09:16:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Greece: Of paupers and taxes | 143 comments (143 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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