Greek Debt Crisis Simplified

I was sent a tax increase on the house I lived in on a nice lake for the last 10 years for a 35% increase in 1 year..........I called the county tax assesors office to complain because clearly property prices here in the US were going down...........His response to me was, and I quote......... "You can dispute this if you want to, but I will tell you in advance that every dispute we have had has resulted in us raising you property tax even more." Now that pi##ed me of severely, so I sold that house and move to another county....................

I can tell you how some countries have benefited from letting Greece join the EU. Please refer to one of my previous posts. As mentioned there I joined the Greek Armoured Corps. At my unit there were around 60+ LEO 1 A5. 60+ times 20 million Euros each of it, you can see that this is quite a very respectful amount...I have to tell you that there were many units close to mine that had more than 60 of those tanks. Some other units had the more advanced LEO 2 which were 2.5 times more expensive..Greece was and remains one the most respectful clients of those German tanks.We have been spending billions and billions of Euros for Military Equipment. In 1980's we were the 4th country in the rankings of the countries spending money for military equipment (after U.S. , Israel and Turkey) How this relates??

Well, the fact that we have been buying German tanks was not that random. It was more like an act of good will to our European ally. We could also buy the M1 or M2 American battle tanks but 95% of our units were equipped only with German Tanks. Another example is the submarine "Papanikolis". In 2004 or 2005 we bought 4 submarines from a German harbor. These were the most technologically advanced submarines and of course we could not buy them form anybody else rather than our allies...In 2008 or early 2009 (I don't recall the exact year) the aforementioned submarine was received by the Greek Government. It costed 500 million Euros..The think was that it was leaning towards one direction (sic!!!!). The whole Greek public was disguised and immediately the submarine was sent back to be repaired. In some meetings that the Greek Prime Minister had with Angela Merkel that issue was discussed. The Germans were not that happy anymore.. Eventually, it was returned but the issue remained. The operational readiness was under question..The Greek Government had not signed at that moment the approval for that payment. Angela Merkel pointed this fact to the Greek government. They replied that those deficiencies have to be rectified before the accept the submarine and pay for it.

In 2010, days before we got the approval for the first bailout, the (new) Greek Government signed the acceptance of that submarine. The German Government was very pleased about that fact. Later on, they participated in the Greek bailout...In Nov 2010 that submarine participated in an international operation in the seas close to Scandinavia. When it returned that defective side of the submarine was severely damaged. The submarine remained out of operations for 2 months in order to be repaired...

Allegations were made that those enormous military equipment supplies were not that random. One of the Defense Ministers of the Party that had ruled Greece from 1993 until 2004 was spotted (Akis Tsochatzopoulos). In 2006 he got married to a much younger lady (she was hot as well!!). He held a ceremony in Paris. Having seen those pictures, me thinks that many Kings and Princes would be very jealous of the ceremony's luxury. The previous year it was revealed that Mr Akis Tsochatzopoulos was in possession of 30+ properties... Allegations were made that he held a lot of off-shore accounts with very significant amounts of money in there. The thing was that he didn't have any other profession rather than being a law maker. His salary was not more than 4,000- 5,000Euros and the amounts in his accounts and the properties owned were multiple figure of his salary. He could not explain this fact. However, there were not hard evidences or any documents that could prove anything...He didn't face any consequences... Now the Greek citizens have to pay for those supplies as they were being placed with borrowed money. Again the taxpayers have to pay for somebody's else faults!!!

From 2002 (when we joined Euro ) until 2009 our imports had skyrocketed. There was one country that had benefited the most from our imports. I think you can imagine which country I am referring to. The strong currency meant that those imports were much more affordable as opposed to the time period we had Greek Drachmas...


I hope that I have given you a possible answer..However bear in mind that they are plenty of ways that the EU can benefit from Greece. I can confidently say that because of our two Ports goods from Asia and Africa can be imported to the EU in a much more efficient (and less costly ) way. I can confidently say that Greece has around 2,000 islands..Most of them are small ones that are pure rocks, so no one lives there. It is estimated that if those islands are used in order to build sun panels to adsorb the sunshine, it could generate 20% of the whole EU electricity's requirements... I can tell you that they are official reports that a lot of gold and uranium mines are existent in the region that I used to live..The Aegean sea if also full of oil...But the exploitation of those resources is constantly being blocked by Greek Unions and environmentalists... However, I have to admit that those projects require something more. HARD work and WILL. I am not sure whether the Greek Government has any of those attributes...

P.S.: I had the pleasure to shoot with a battle tank (LEO1A5) (as part of a simulation of a war) . I also fired against a "possible" target. An old and unused battle tank. The ammunition used was APFSDS (google it). Its starting speed was 2 Km/esc!!!!! And when a tank shoots, it DOES move! The whole experience was very exciting!!. I would kill to get that experience again...

The things you say are very indicative of the United States as well.....................They are all around against the working class,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Very True!!! I could not have stated that any better...However you forgot to mention who is paying the bill now...Not that Minister for sure!!! He has that money in off-shore accounts where nobody can touch it.... And I know who you are talking about...

There is much truth to a lot of things you mentioned. Clearly there is some "liability" to citizens voting for those Governments and some of them clearly wanted to ensure that their benefits would continue for ever... However, you must acknowledge that there were not that many options for them available. The two main Parties had ruled Greece from 1974 and on wards...They were pretty much the same...Until recently there were only two other small Parties in the Greek Parliament. Both of them were left...One of them (KKE- Greek Communist Party) was advocating that we should desert Capitalism and adopt the Economic model of the Soviet Union... they said that if heir Party would rule Greece they would desert the EU and NATO!!!NO COMMENT!!!

Also they(politicians) have been lying to citizens about the strength of the Economy. Nobody explained to them the seriousness of the situation...As I was aware of it, I found myself becoming the centre of scrutiny for being over concerned...As mentioned earlier in my posts in 2009 there were elections in Greece. The leader of the opposition Party George Papandreou (and now Prime Minister) was desperate to get elected. He lost two elections and the third one would mean that he could no longer be the leader of the Party.... He was promising things that he could not clearly deliver... He also stated that THERE IS PLENTY OF MONEY!!! I think this example gives you an idea how many citizens (clearly not me..) were being deceived to vote for him...

As for the tax evasion....As a son of an employee of the public sector I can confidently say that employees could not tax evade. Since their salaries were known they could not tax evade. Only the self employed and the businessmen could do that...Clearly not the vast majority of the Greek population...

But why would they do it??? I can give you some reasons... In Greece as mentioned in my earlier posts there is not a stable tax regime...That means that any moment, even 1 month after the tax regime has changed, the tax level could change again...Please note that the VAT in Greece changed twice(!!!) in 2010 from 19% to 23%... In 2005 as an act of good will and in order to attract investors, the Greek Government decided to lower the Corporate Tax from 35% to 25%... It stayed there for quite some time...Now that there is need for money they raised it to 40%...I feel sorry for those investors taking decision to invest in Greece based on that act of "good" will. I can tell you that this year all the citizens (including my father) paid additional taxes on the income they had last year!!! They paid that tax when it was due but because the Government was in need of money the sent notices to pay some additional money..Now they want to impose a tax for the income the citizens will have in the next year!!! They have not got their salaries yet but they are ordered to pay on future income!!!

Another example...Remember the Brokerage firm I was working for??? That Head broker (and owner of that firm) had to pay for rents maintenance costs, software fees, salaries to the employees etc... After all those costs he could have his income. Do you know how much we would keep?? 50% only from the very first Euro!!! So that meant on an net income of 60, 000 Euros (that is how much he was earning in 1999, not bad at all for Greece) he had to pay 30,000 Euros income tax!!! That is because his services were segmented to that tax level.... The same applies if you are self-employed and provide educational services...So if you provide lets say FOREX education to persons half of your income will be deducted by taxes...This means if you earned 20,000 Euros that year you have to pay 10,000 Euros tax. And you have to live with the rest of the money.... How does that sound to you??? Most of the self employed if they were reporting their actual income they could not make a decent living...However, this doesn't apply to the big businessmen...

One last example.During the summer of 2007 there were numerous fires in Greek Forests. Sooner or later because of their severity the Greek Authorities could not manage them...Those fires went to rural areas as well...Around 30 persons died!!! Many citizens have lost their houses as they were burnt...I was shocked by this reality. 50+ years old persons had lost their houses and had nowhere to live... Then the Greek Government unable to compensate all of them had opened an account to a bank and appealed to the public to help those affected citizens...I had saved 200 Euros and wanted to buy a new pair of shoes.But I didn't give it a second thought. The next day I went and deposited that money to that account..The rest of the citizens as well. The Greeks get united when there is a need...Do you know what happened to that money??? Only 5% was donated to those victims?? the rest of the money was used for other purposes..There were allegations made that this money was used in order to repair and rebuild one the City Halls that was burnt from the fires....


That moment I swore that I would never pay any other tax to those robbers!!! They are (and will remain) robbers and the money paid to them will not be used for any good purpose...If I knew that the taxes paid by me would be used for good purposes I would be very happy about it...And this is the mentality of many Greeks and I don't blame them for this (one of the very few) matter...I have to state that I currently live in the U.K. and I have never tax evaded. I pay my taxes and will continue to pay them...However , I know that the tax regime is stable (so no nasty surprises) and that nobody is partying with my taxes (and if somebody is partying with it he or she would soon have to pay for it...).

I hope that this post has given you valuable information...


Evangelos

I have also spotted that as well. As mentioned in my earlier posts, I am able of poring over and interpreting the National Accounts of a country... As I did it in the past for Greece I did the same for the U.K. and U.S.A. That is because I live in the U.K. and I trade the EUR/USD pair...

In a few words, the figures seem appalling... For both countries... (Especially for the U.S.A....)Their only merit compared to Greece is the fact that they have their own currency, so they can print more money if they need ...

There is not much difference between "man in the street" anywhere. Today we are observing the happenings of the Arab Spring. It all boils down to the same thing but, in the end, democracy means nothing if we do not value it. The man in the street has been,for too long, willing to allow authority to do as it wished and for those at the top to use a country as their personal fiefdom.

You call it a merit?

Read the 'Best Rated' comments on the first article, at least some people understand what is what.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/a...=feeds-newsxml

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...ty-values.html