Jump to content
  • Sign up for free and receive a month's subscription

    You are viewing this page as a guest. That means you are either a member who has not logged in, or you have not yet registered with us. Signing up for an account only takes a minute and it means you will no longer see this annoying box! It will also allow you to get involved with our friendly(ish!) community and take part in the discussions on our forums. And because we're feeling generous, if you sign up for a free account we will give you a month's free trial access to our subscriber only content with no obligation to commit. Register an account and then send a private message to @dave u and he'll hook you up with a subscription.

Greece


Section_31
 Share

Recommended Posts

So they basically did the right thing. I guess our problem was our banks are so big the repercussions so wide that letting them fail would have been too painful. I don't mind bailing them out. But not sending one single of the fuckers to jail has just made them think they are more bullet proof than ever.

They should have been part nationalised. At least for a time, overhauled and reconstructed root and stem.

 

Their culture is rotten and has been for years. Even people who work in high Street banks away from the high end will tell you they're fucked up.

 

My ex boss's Mrs was at one for 20-odd years and said the culture was unrecognisable by the time she left. Went from a bank that was about - you know - storing and lending money - to a virtual sales job, where you were just given targets to foist credit cards and shit on people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As a country, in the mid- to late- 00s we were spending way beyond our means.  Something had to give.  This was nothing to do with the EU, this is simple Maths.  Our public sector pay and welfare rates were through the roof when the crash happened.  Granted the bank guarantee and subsequent bailout (which were European led) clearly exacerbated the problem but even way before that we had serious issues as a result of a clueless administration who were buying votes with ludicrous concessions and were wholly reliant on property based taxes to fund the economy.

I don't know a great deal about the Irish economy, but the way you paint it, it seems unusual that a well-known enemy of public-spending would praise the way the Irish government were doing things.

http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2010/11/osbornes-paean-to-the-irish-economy/

 

Here is a fine example of the dangers of politicians writing seemingly innocuous op-eds for newspapers.

Ahead of a trip to Dublin in 2006, George Osborneused an article in The Times to pay homage to the Irish boom. The opening paragraph about Ireland’s “shining example” to economic policymakers is a classic:

A generation ago, the very idea that a British politician would go to Ireland to see how to run an economy would have been laughable. The Irish Republic was seen as Britain’s poor and troubled country cousin, a rural backwater on the edge of Europe. Today things are different. 
Ireland stands as a shining example of the art of the possible in long-term economic policymaking, and that is why I am in Dublin: to listen and to learn.

The conclusion is almost as cringeworthy:

The new global economy poses real long-term challenges to Britain, but also real opportunities for us to prosper and succeed.  In Ireland they understand this.

They have freed their markets, developed the skills of their workforce, encouraged enterprise and innovation and created a dynamic economy. They have much to teach us, if only we are willing to learn.

To be fair to Osborne, many of his arguments are still valid even after the crash.

A well educated workforce, top notch R&D investment, and competitive tax rates to encourage investment are all as important now as they were during the boom years.

But there is not a word of caution about potential imbalanaces in the economy. No mention of the racy property market, reckless lending, or his views on the dangers to Ireland from having joined the Euro.

UPDATE: Mark Hoban just told the Commons that Ireland made the same mistakes as Brown. “The reality is, Ireland did get some things right, it has a flexible labour market, it has low taxes, but they made the same mistake that the previous government did; they failed to regulate their banks properly.”

Poor regulation wasn’t a problem identified by Osborne at the time. Indeed, he thought Brown had some lessons to learn from the Irish light touch. He warned that Britain was “falling behind” Ireland: “Poor skill levels, rising taxes, bureaucratic planning controls and chronic overregulation are high on the list of culprits.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As someone who gets most of his news from the BBC, it's striking how little information we get about Greece.  I briefly switched over to EuroNews the other day and they were laying out (in simple layman's terms) the negotiating positions of the Greek Government on one side and the EU/IMF gang on the other.  Basically, the Greeks were proposing to add some pretty swingeing cuts to those the people have already suffered, balanced with some efforts to get some money from those who can easily afford it and to protect the country's assets (specifically, the ports) from rapacious privateers.  This, of course, was not enough for the EU/IMF, who want to impose ever-more cruel and draconian cuts, while stealing the nation's assets for their friends.  "Can't afford to feed your pensioners?  Fuck you, pay Paulie."

 

The Government are absolutely correct to arrange a referendum, to let the people choose between dangerous uncertainty and painful certainty.

 

Here's an interesting and illuminating read.

https://www.byline.com/column/11/article/126

 

I am a Europhile. Not only that, I am a product of the Union. I have structured my life around the idea of free movement; my identity around the notion that I can be more than one thing: Mykonian, Greek, Londoner, British, European. For the first time in my life, I am beginning to wonder, whether the European project is now simply too broken to be fixed. 

Do not misunderstand me. I am passionate about the notion of a Europe of partners, united around principles of solidarity and trade. I just think we have taken wrong turns. So many and so wrong that I feel very uncertain as to whether we can ever find our way back. 

I am not alone in feeling like this and it is not of consequence only with regard to Greece. I have had numerous messages in the last few days from pro-European friends here in Britain, telling me that the way the institutions have treated Greece, have convinced them to cross over to the "out" camp for the forthcoming UK referendum on European membership. 

I am not in the deluded camp who think that national sovereignty is a magic bullet that will restore some nationalist utopia which only ever existed in our minds. Governments have been captured by corporate interests, so completely and at every level, that all EU exit changes is the field on which necessary battles must be fought. No flag provides protection from that, however tightly we wrap ourselves in it.

Neither do I want to suggest that the project hasn't been a success. Before it was captured by this fatal monetarist fever, it achieved decades of unprecedented peace and prosperity, extraordinary advances in working and consumer rights, and a mingling of cultures and populations which has enriched us all. But I know, in my heart, it is now irrevocably damaged.

The choice being presented to the Greek people is a difficult one. Stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea, as they say. On one hand, continuing a programme which has decimated the country and its economy, plunged millions into poverty and has killed many thousands. On the other, the complete unknown. No, not automatic Grexit, as some would have you believe. But certainly the possibility of it. 

The side which supports saying "yes" to the disgraceful agreement being offered, in exchange for staying in the Euro, paint it in two ways: First, as a battle between certainty and uncertainty. But that is misleading. Because, by examining our country's trajectory over the past five years, the certainty being offered by a "yes" is a certainty of more misery, more poverty, more humiliation, more degradation. Those recommending "yes" to taking more of the medicine being extended to us, do so in the full knowledge that this medicine is poison. 

Second, the choice is being painted as one between emotion and reason. It is, of course, not unusual for the established to be presented as reasonable and the radical as emotional. It is pretty much the whole basis of conservatism. But fear is also an emotion. And what drives the "yes" camp seems to be a very clear terror of the notion that the unknown might be even worse. It is the logic of locking yourself inside your cabin on the Titanic, because the lifeboats are small and the ocean frozen.

***

Last winter, I stood outside the Opera House in the centre of Athens looking at the posters in the window. I was approached by a well-dressed and immaculately groomed elderly lady. I moved to the side. I thought she wanted to pass. She didn't. She asked me for a few euros because she was hungry. I took her to dinner and, in generous and unsolicited exchange, she told me her story.

Her name was Magda and she was in her mid-seventies. She had worked as a teacher all her life. Her husband had been a college professor and died "mercifully long before we were reduced to this state", as she put it. They paid their tax, national insurance and pension contributions straight out of the salary, like most people. They never cheated the state. They never took risks. They saved. They lived modestly in a two bedroom flat.

In the first year of the crisis her widow's pension top-up stopped. In the second and third her own pension was slashed in half. Downsizing was not an option - house prices had collapsed and there were no buyers. In the third year things got worse. "First, I sold my jewellery. Except this ring", she said, stroking her wedding ring with her thumb. "Then, I sold the pictures and rugs. Then the good crockery and silver. Then most of the furniture. Now there is nothing left that anyone wants. Last month the super came and removed the radiators from my flat, because I hadn't paid for communal fuel in so long. I feel so ashamed."

I don't know why this encounter should have shocked me so deeply. Poverty and hunger is everywhere in Athens. Magda's story is replicated thousands of times across Greece. It is certainly not because one life is worth more than another. And yet there is something peculiarly discordant and irreconcilable about the "nouveau pauvres", just like like there is about the nouveau riches. Most likely it shocked me because I kept thinking how much she reminded me of my mother. 

And, still, I don't know whether voting "yes" or "no" will make life better or worse for her. I don't know what Magda would vote either. I can only guess. What I do know, is that the encounter was the beginning of the end of my love affair with the European project. Because, quite simply, it is no longer my European Union. It is Amazon's and Starbucks'. It is the politicians' and the IMF's. But it is not mine.

If belonging to the largest and richest trading bloc in the world cannot provide dinner for a retired teacher like her, it has no reason to exist. If a European Union which produces €28,000 of annual GDP for every single one of its citizens cannot provide a safety net for her, then it is profoundly wicked. If this is not a union of partners, but a gang of big players and small players, who cut the weakest loose at the first sign of trouble, then it is nothing.

Each one of us will have to engage in an internal battle before Sunday's referendum. I will be thinking of you, Magda, when I vote. It seems as honest a basis to make a decision as any. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As someone who gets most of his news from the BBC, it's striking how little information we get about Greece.  I briefly switched over to EuroNews the other day and they were laying out (in simple layman's terms) the negotiating positions of the Greek Government on one side and the EU/IMF gang on the other.  Basically, the Greeks were proposing to add some pretty swingeing cuts to those the people have already suffered, balanced with some efforts to get some money from those who can easily afford it and to protect the country's assets (specifically, the ports) from rapacious privateers.  This, of course, was not enough for the EU/IMF, who want to impose ever-more cruel and draconian cuts, while stealing the nation's assets for their friends.  "Can't afford to feed your pensioners?  Fuck you, pay Paulie."

 

The Government are absolutely correct to arrange a referendum, to let the people choose between dangerous uncertainty and painful certainty.

 

Here's an interesting and illuminating read.

https://www.byline.com/column/11/article/126

 

I am a Europhile. Not only that, I am a product of the Union. I have structured my life around the idea of free movement; my identity around the notion that I can be more than one thing: Mykonian, Greek, Londoner, British, European. For the first time in my life, I am beginning to wonder, whether the European project is now simply too broken to be fixed. 

Do not misunderstand me. I am passionate about the notion of a Europe of partners, united around principles of solidarity and trade. I just think we have taken wrong turns. So many and so wrong that I feel very uncertain as to whether we can ever find our way back. 

I am not alone in feeling like this and it is not of consequence only with regard to Greece. I have had numerous messages in the last few days from pro-European friends here in Britain, telling me that the way the institutions have treated Greece, have convinced them to cross over to the "out" camp for the forthcoming UK referendum on European membership. 

I am not in the deluded camp who think that national sovereignty is a magic bullet that will restore some nationalist utopia which only ever existed in our minds. Governments have been captured by corporate interests, so completely and at every level, that all EU exit changes is the field on which necessary battles must be fought. No flag provides protection from that, however tightly we wrap ourselves in it.

Neither do I want to suggest that the project hasn't been a success. Before it was captured by this fatal monetarist fever, it achieved decades of unprecedented peace and prosperity, extraordinary advances in working and consumer rights, and a mingling of cultures and populations which has enriched us all. But I know, in my heart, it is now irrevocably damaged.

The choice being presented to the Greek people is a difficult one. Stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea, as they say. On one hand, continuing a programme which has decimated the country and its economy, plunged millions into poverty and has killed many thousands. On the other, the complete unknown. No, not automatic Grexit, as some would have you believe. But certainly the possibility of it. 

The side which supports saying "yes" to the disgraceful agreement being offered, in exchange for staying in the Euro, paint it in two ways: First, as a battle between certainty and uncertainty. But that is misleading. Because, by examining our country's trajectory over the past five years, the certainty being offered by a "yes" is a certainty of more misery, more poverty, more humiliation, more degradation. Those recommending "yes" to taking more of the medicine being extended to us, do so in the full knowledge that this medicine is poison. 

Second, the choice is being painted as one between emotion and reason. It is, of course, not unusual for the established to be presented as reasonable and the radical as emotional. It is pretty much the whole basis of conservatism. But fear is also an emotion. And what drives the "yes" camp seems to be a very clear terror of the notion that the unknown might be even worse. It is the logic of locking yourself inside your cabin on the Titanic, because the lifeboats are small and the ocean frozen.

***

Last winter, I stood outside the Opera House in the centre of Athens looking at the posters in the window. I was approached by a well-dressed and immaculately groomed elderly lady. I moved to the side. I thought she wanted to pass. She didn't. She asked me for a few euros because she was hungry. I took her to dinner and, in generous and unsolicited exchange, she told me her story.

Her name was Magda and she was in her mid-seventies. She had worked as a teacher all her life. Her husband had been a college professor and died "mercifully long before we were reduced to this state", as she put it. They paid their tax, national insurance and pension contributions straight out of the salary, like most people. They never cheated the state. They never took risks. They saved. They lived modestly in a two bedroom flat.

In the first year of the crisis her widow's pension top-up stopped. In the second and third her own pension was slashed in half. Downsizing was not an option - house prices had collapsed and there were no buyers. In the third year things got worse. "First, I sold my jewellery. Except this ring", she said, stroking her wedding ring with her thumb. "Then, I sold the pictures and rugs. Then the good crockery and silver. Then most of the furniture. Now there is nothing left that anyone wants. Last month the super came and removed the radiators from my flat, because I hadn't paid for communal fuel in so long. I feel so ashamed."

I don't know why this encounter should have shocked me so deeply. Poverty and hunger is everywhere in Athens. Magda's story is replicated thousands of times across Greece. It is certainly not because one life is worth more than another. And yet there is something peculiarly discordant and irreconcilable about the "nouveau pauvres", just like like there is about the nouveau riches. Most likely it shocked me because I kept thinking how much she reminded me of my mother. 

And, still, I don't know whether voting "yes" or "no" will make life better or worse for her. I don't know what Magda would vote either. I can only guess. What I do know, is that the encounter was the beginning of the end of my love affair with the European project. Because, quite simply, it is no longer my European Union. It is Amazon's and Starbucks'. It is the politicians' and the IMF's. But it is not mine.

If belonging to the largest and richest trading bloc in the world cannot provide dinner for a retired teacher like her, it has no reason to exist. If a European Union which produces €28,000 of annual GDP for every single one of its citizens cannot provide a safety net for her, then it is profoundly wicked. If this is not a union of partners, but a gang of big players and small players, who cut the weakest loose at the first sign of trouble, then it is nothing.

Each one of us will have to engage in an internal battle before Sunday's referendum. I will be thinking of you, Magda, when I vote. It seems as honest a basis to make a decision as any. 

That boldened point is an interesting one.I doubt I ever get near to getting my £28k worth of my EU wealth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't profess to know that much about the complex mess Greece has found itself in but its impossible not to feel very sad for the millions of people unable to find work ,struggling and stuck between years of poverty or a leap into the abyss . What I do know is that there are a lot of wealthy people there for whom paying taxes is a novelty , corruption is rife and companies can easily set up shop in places like Bulgaria and pay fuck all on their earnings in Greece, The whole fucking system is broken . At what point do you draw the line and stop pumping in money to prop it up and not get some fundamental reforms, ? Of course its obvious now weak economies like Greece should never have been signed up the Euro project which allows for no exit or devaluation but that knowledge does nothing to solve the immediate crisis, I suppose after a week of no banking system and the place in meltdown the turkeys will vote for Christmas in the referendum but the reality is they need to find a structured way to ease them out of the single currency if any lasting solution is to be found,   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing I've never understood is why organisations are allowed to set up their HQ in another country to avoid paying tax (in Greece's case Bulgaria) surely it's in everyone country's interest to enshrine in law that any income made in country x means that tax is paid on that income in country x regardless of where their HQ is. I understand it's more complex and we'd n ed global agreements to resolve but it's just mental really.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing I've never understood is why organisations are allowed to set up their HQ in another country to avoid paying tax (in Greece's case Bulgaria) surely it's in everyone country's interest to enshrine in law that any income made in country x means that tax is paid on that income in country x regardless of where their HQ is. I understand it's more complex and we'd n ed global agreements to resolve but it's just mental really.[/quote

It's a disgrace what multi nationals get away with even in the UK . Look no further than Amazon.

We have struggled to tackle the problem because it needs some degree of international cooperation

For Greece with a weak government and corrupt as fuck not a prayer.

Personally for any company that refused to submit a proper profit and loss account for its operations in your jurisdiction I would levy a flat rate based on a percentage of their turnover. Set at rate that would hurt companies would soon tow the line

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing I've never understood is why organisations are allowed to set up their HQ in another country to avoid paying tax (in Greece's case Bulgaria) surely it's in everyone country's interest to enshrine in law that any income made in country x means that tax is paid on that income in country x regardless of where their HQ is. I understand it's more complex and we'd n ed global agreements to resolve but it's just mental really.[/quote

It's a disgrace what multi nationals get away with even in the UK . Look no further than Amazon.

We have struggled to tackle the problem because it needs some degree of international cooperation

For Greece with a weak government and corrupt as fuck not a prayer.

Personally for any company that refused to submit a proper profit and loss account for its operations in your jurisdiction I would levy a flat rate based on a percentage of their turnover. Set at rate that would hurt companies would soon tow the line

 

I think most would agree, in reality it's proved difficult to implement because it needs international agreement to work effectively. Even achieving this within the EU would be a big step forward. A standard corporation tax level for all multi-national companies operating within the EU or if that's not possible legislation to force companies to pay tax level's defined at the point of sale rather than where they are domiciled.

 

Too much vested interested all round unfortunately. If we went ahead unilaterally we'd effectively kick off a round of protectionism with other countries, particularly the US imposing a levy against UK businesses operating within their respective country.

 

Bug's the hell out of me, I run a small business, happy to pay all my taxes but it's irritating to think that Amazon or Google pay a tiny fraction of the tax level my business pays. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it true they have offered a load of sweeteners and better deals for Greece if they change their Government. If it is that is shocking. All I gather from the whole thing is dodgy banks help manipulate figures and people who should of done the opposite looked the other way. The powers that be in greece bit off more than they could chew through greed. What remains is a giant shitfest where the people least responsible suffer the most. To be honest Iv'e no fucking clue obviously but comments sections are making for fascinating reading. "serves the greeks right the lazy bastards" "why should I pay for Greece" its like greece is on the dole with a flat screen TV.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haha just a generic name of a chinese I guess. Anyone remember that Golden Pheonix?

many a childhood egg fried rice in there.

 

Although we then jibbed it for the Mandarin until that got closed down for multiple hygeine breaches. Once saw a bona fide mob-style 'collection' in the Mandarin.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Need to buy me some Euros - when's the agreement being decided so I can cash in?

 

The referendum is next week I think.

 

Wish this crisis had happened a few weeks earlier. I went to Spain on 15th June and got 1.33 euros to the pound, now you can get 1.41 ffs.

  • Upvote 1
  • Downvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The referendum is next week I think.Wish this crisis had happened a few weeks earlier. I went to Spain on 15th June and got 1.33 euros to the pound, now you can get 1.41 ffs.

Yep, you have saved a whole £26 on the €500 or so that you spent in cash on your week away. Presumably that's about a month's rent in Wallasey

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep, you have saved a whole £26 on the €500 or so that you spent in cash on your week away.

 

It's about an extra 32 euros on an outlay of 400 quid.

 

Bear in mind how far that goes in Spain, a country where a bottle of perfectly drinkable wine costs 1 euro.

 

If that kind of sum is insignificant to you, you can Paypal it over to me.

 

Presumably that's about a month's rent in Wallasey

 

I wouldn't know, I've never paid a dime of rent in my life, like all sensible people I decided to pay off my own mortgage rather than someone else's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


×
×
  • Create New...