[The Waltzing Consumer]

Originally Posted by Crosswind

Do you any "credible" report to contradict the one i posted?
I was called a liar when i said that tax evasion is not 40%, but a bit more than half, so i brought a report that supports what i'm saying. Still waiting for proof of the opposite.
Btw, nice try to discredit the report, but if you actually had read it, you'd have noticed that Wiki was used only for population data. Other sources of the report were the World Health Organisation, US Treasury and CIA World Factbook. I guess the Spiegel and Channel 4 are way more credible

It is your argument, you need to back it up not me. I never called you a liar.

The standard on politics is higher than other forums in boards, so that is why you will see a report that once cites web sources ripped apart and not taken serious.

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/26074/1/GreeSE_No_31.pdf
is a simple example of a report on Greece and tax evasion which has proper citation and references. Your report only had weblinks, which is arrogant and lazy for any report, especially when figures are coming from wikipedia as they are open to such editing.

I only make my point because we are seeing more and more lazy examples of media not checking their sources, the Independent and Sindo being prime examples in recent weeks.

We gotta have standards!

[Scofflaw]

Originally Posted by Crosswind

Agree, to a point. My objection is that the loans were used to repay older loans. Same thing with the supposed bailout. What I find even worse is that money granted for growth (EU programs) were not used (or used up to 20-30%) and therefore returned back to EU after a period of time due to bureaucracy and inadequate (understatement here) politicians. Greece is facing, for the past 30 years, a political bankruptcy most of all. Even tax evasion is a political and not economical problem as there is no will from the governments to tackle it.

Absolutely true - they could have chosen to seriously clean up their act in order to get into the euro (as we did). Instead they chose to fudge the figures. They could have chosen to clean up their act in order to make the fantasy and reality meet. Instead they chose to borrow on the strength of the euro to paper over the gap.

And now, when they're being bailed out by other people - both public and private - they still don't seem to have the necessary political will to clean up their act to the extent that the countries lending money to them want in order to feel they're not foolishly risking their taxpayers' money.

cordially,
Scofflaw

[Crosswind]

Originally Posted by The Waltzing Consumer

It is your argument, you need to back it up not me. I never called you a liar.

The standard on politics is higher than other forums in boards, so that is why you will see a report that once cites web sources ripped apart and not taken serious.

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/26074/1/GreeSE_No_31.pdf
is a simple example of a report on Greece and tax evasion which has proper citation and references. Your report only had weblinks, which is arrogant and lazy for any report, especially when figures are coming from wikipedia as they are open to such editing.

I only make my point because we are seeing more and more lazy examples of media not checking their sources, the Independent and Sindo being prime examples in recent weeks.

We gotta have standards!

I can't argue with your logic, after all the whole argument started when someone posted a link about Greece having a certain amount of tax evasion without anything to back it up. I'm tired of seeing personal opinions from so called journalists being taken as a gospel without the slightest effort from the reader to actually check if the data is valid.
Concerning the link I posted, it is a briefing report with the latest data, not a paper. As long as it contains the sources used so that I can check them, is fine by me. On the other hand, you linked a paper that was being updated for several years (2008-2010 if I remember correctly), so yes, it is more professional looking