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Greece: Parliament passes bill, Athens burns

  • 13-02-2012 8:38am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭


    (Reuters) - Greece's parliament approved a deeply unpopular austerity bill Monday to secure a second EU/IMF bailout and avoid national bankruptcy, as buildings burned across central Athens and violence spread around the country.

    Cinemas, cafes, shops and banks were set ablaze in central Athens and black-masked protesters fought riot police outside parliament before lawmakers voted on the package that demands deep pay, pension and job cuts -- the price of a 130 billion euro ($172 billion) bailout needed to keep the country afloat.

    State television reported the violence spread to the tourist islands of Corfu and Crete, the northern city of Thessaloniki and towns in central Greece. Police said 150 shops were looted in the capital and 34 buildings set ablaze.

    Altogether 199 of the 300 lawmakers backed the bill, but 43 deputies from the two parties in the government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, the socialists and conservatives, rebelled by voting against It. They were immediately expelled by their parties.

    OK, so widescale protests & rioting on the one hand, party defections on the other, but still passed by a two-thirds majority. And the reaction of the rest of the eurozone:
    Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- European finance chiefs get the second chance in a week to pull Greece back from the brink of collapse after lawmakers in Athens approved the austerity measures demanded for a financial lifeline.

    Greece “will be saved in one way or another,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told newspaper Welt am Sonntag yesterday, though the country must “do its homework.”

    Euro-area finance ministers will convene in Brussels on Feb. 15 in an extraordinary meeting that was set after they declined in a special session on Feb. 9 to ratify the 130 billion-euro ($172 billion) package. Frustrated after two years of missed budget targets, the European authorities demanded Greek officials put their verbal commitments into law.

    It's still to be voted on by the rest of the eurozone - that comes on Feb 27th, so there's still time for the applecart to be upset between now and then.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


«13

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,784 ✭✭✭Dirk Gently


    looks like the state is losing the support of the police too with the police union threatening to arrest officials for "...blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty" and also indicating that they wont stand against their fellow protesting citizens much longer.

    Judging by the scale of the constant sustained protests ongoing for several years and yesterdays strikes and rioting it's hard to see how any government supporting the EU package will be able to realistically govern much longer.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,236 ✭✭✭Dannyboy83


    Comparing this
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/us-greece-police-idUSTRE8190UC20120210

    with this
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2007949/The-Big-Fat-Greek-Gravy-Train-A-special-investigation-EU-funded-culture-greed-tax-evasion-scandalous-waste.html

    It seems the Greek police have taken aim at the wrong target...............should they not be lashing out at the Greek public sector and tax-dodgers trying to pull them back into the water, rather than the EU/IMF Lifeguard trying to pull them out of the water? :confused:


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,483 ✭✭✭Ostrom


    Dannyboy83 wrote: »
    Comparing this
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/us-greece-police-idUSTRE8190UC20120210

    with this
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2007949/The-Big-Fat-Greek-Gravy-Train-A-special-investigation-EU-funded-culture-greed-tax-evasion-scandalous-waste.html

    It seems the Greek police have taken aim at the wrong target...............should they not be lashing out at the Greek public sector and tax-dodgers trying to pull them back into the water, rather than the EU/IMF Lifeguard trying to pull them out of the water? :confused:

    A public demanding representation (i.e. a refletion of their collective will, as devolved to their elected representatives) over a crisis not of their own making? Predictable right wing misrepresentation from the mail as usual.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,236 ✭✭✭Dannyboy83


    efla wrote: »
    A public demanding representation (i.e. a refletion of their collective will, as devolved to their elected representatives) over a crisis not of their own making?

    Not of their own making....................did we read the same article ?
    http://www.dailymail...lous-waste.html

    The overground rail network is as big a racket as the EU-funded underground. While its annual income is only £80?million from ticket sales, the wage bill is more than £500m a year — prompting one Greek politician to famously remark that it would be cheaper to put all the commuters into private taxis.


    Significantly, since entering Europe as part of an ill-fated dream by politicians of creating a European super-state, the wage bill of the Greek public sector has doubled in a decade. At the same time, perks and fiddles reminiscent of Britain in the union-controlled 1970s have flourished.




    Astonishingly, only 5,000 people in a country of 12 million admit to earning more than £90,000 a year — a salary that would not be enough to buy a garden shed in Kifissia.



    Manipulating a corrupt tax system, many of the residents simply say that they earn below the basic tax threshold of around £10,000 a year, even though they own boats, second homes on Greek islands and properties overseas.

    And, should the taxman rumble this common ruse, it can be dealt with using a ‘fakelaki’ — an envelope stuffed with cash. There is even a semi-official rate for bribes: passing a false tax return requires a payment of up to 10,000 euros (the average Greek family is reckoned to pay out £2,000 a year in fakelaki.)


    With Greek President George Papandreou calling for a crackdown on these tax dodgerswho are believed to cost the economy as much as £40bn a year


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 27 Tom Harward


    it was really good to work 5 hours a day and then taverna...


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  • Registered Users Posts: 73 ✭✭Crosswind


    it was really good to work 5 hours a day and then taverna...

    ...for 460/mth


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,920 ✭✭✭Einhard


    efla wrote: »
    A public demanding representation (i.e. a refletion of their collective will, as devolved to their elected representatives) over a crisis not of their own making?

    You're not being serious are you?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 465 ✭✭pacquiao


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    OK, so widescale protests & rioting on the one hand, party defections on the other, but still passed by a two-thirds majority. And the reaction of the rest of the eurozone:



    It's still to be voted on by the rest of the eurozone - that comes on Feb 27th, so there's still time for the applecart to be upset between now and then.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw
    Frustrated after two years of missed budget targets, the European authorities demanded Greek officials put their verbal commitments into law.
    Previously, what was stopping them from running a massive deficit?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,565 ✭✭✭southsiderosie


    pacquiao wrote: »
    Previously, what was stopping them from running a massive deficit?

    I would guess the fact that they could devalue their way out of a crisis? Inflation in Greece was consistently high until the euro convergence process.


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    pacquiao wrote: »
    Previously, what was stopping them from running a massive deficit?

    Presuming that to be in relation to the "two years of missed budget targets", the answer would presumably be nothing at all. After all, here's nothing in Irish law constraining the Irish government to the troika programme targets, as far as I'm aware.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 465 ✭✭pacquiao


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    Presuming that to be in relation to the "two years of missed budget targets", the answer would presumably be nothing at all. After all, here's nothing in Irish law constraining the Irish government to the troika programme targets, as far as I'm aware.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw
    Member nations must keep deficits at less than 3 percent of gross domestic product and trim national debt to less than 60 percent of GDP under the pact.
    Is the above law?


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,483 ✭✭✭Ostrom


    Einhard wrote: »
    You're not being serious are you?

    No doubt you get the politicians you deserve/elect, but we are also quick to externalise our faults to actors like Fianna Fail. I fail to see how the majority of the Greek electorate should be held accountable for the misrepresentations / corruptions of its government (i.e. GDP misreporting), given that the Greek collapse (as with ours) is partly rooted in events beyond its borders, and the actions of a minority.

    I'm not dismissing the clear need for austerity, just pointing out this profound ideological shift forwarded by commentators like the mail. It seems to be part of a broader, worrying tendency toward statism where every step is taken to ensure the will of the electorate is subverted (as per deliberations over the constitutional-level enactment of the fiscal compact).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,565 ✭✭✭southsiderosie


    efla wrote: »
    No doubt you get the politicians you deserve/elect, but we are also quick to externalise our faults to actors like Fianna Fail. I fail to see how the majority of the Greek electorate should be held accountable for the misrepresentations / corruptions of its government (i.e. GDP misreporting), given that the Greek collapse (as with ours) is partly rooted in events beyond its borders, and the actions of a minority.

    I'm not dismissing the clear need for austerity, just pointing out this profound ideological shift forwarded by commentators like the mail. It seems to be part of a broader, worrying tendency toward statism where every step is taken to ensure the will of the electorate is subverted (as per deliberations over the constitutional-level enactment of the fiscal compact).

    But this raises a broader question: should politicians simply carry out the will of the electorate, or at some point do they do the politically unpopular thing because they think it is in the best long-term interests of the country? I don't think the answer should be either-or; rather there has to be a balance.


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    pacquiao wrote: »
    Is the above law?

    It's not Irish law. It's a treaty commitment, with penalties enshrined in the same treaty. Kyoto is also a treaty.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,349 ✭✭✭squonk


    Would the Greeks not be better off heading off to Berlin or Burssels and rioting and buring down shops there? Might bring the reality of the situation closer to the home of the ruling classes!


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,483 ✭✭✭Ostrom


    But this raises a broader question: should politicians simply carry out the will of the electorate, or at some point do they do the politically unpopular thing because they think it is in the best long-term interests of the country? I don't think the answer should be either-or; rather there has to be a balance.

    In a state of impartial rationality, perhaps - although I don't think it possible to objectively measure harm irrespective of class/political interests (apologies for the nondescript terminology).

    In either case, I would argue that any such measures of recovery (as return to growth, interest rates on bonds etc) implicate some form of inequality with the majority electorate as losers - in either monetary or representational terms.

    Speaking in the abstract - it is a worrying form of centralisation, and unfortunately, most commentaries seem to imply an uncritical acceptance that such decisions are both impartial and optimal.


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    efla wrote: »
    No doubt you get the politicians you deserve/elect, but we are also quick to externalise our faults to actors like Fianna Fail. I fail to see how the majority of the Greek electorate should be held accountable for the misrepresentations / corruptions of its government (i.e. GDP misreporting), given that the Greek collapse (as with ours) is partly rooted in events beyond its borders, and the actions of a minority.

    I'm not dismissing the clear need for austerity, just pointing out this profound ideological shift forwarded by commentators like the mail. It seems to be part of a broader, worrying tendency toward statism where every step is taken to ensure the will of the electorate is subverted (as per deliberations over the constitutional-level enactment of the fiscal compact).

    Would you argue, then, that in a democracy the citizens are not responsible for the actions of their government, and/or have no responsibility for ensuring that their government is honest and sensible?

    How is it that the Greeks have a government who appear to have more or less swindled their way into the eurozone, and who have very evidently spent much more money than their state can afford ever since, and lied about it - while the Germans (and the Scandinavians, etc etc) don't? Was bad government somehow imposed on Greece?

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 465 ✭✭pacquiao


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    It's not Irish law. It's a treaty commitment, with penalties enshrined in the same treaty. Kyoto is also a treaty.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw
    Is a treaty not international law though?


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,920 ✭✭✭Einhard


    efla wrote: »
    No doubt you get the politicians you deserve/elect, but we are also quick to externalise our faults to actors like Fianna Fail. I fail to see how the majority of the Greek electorate should be held accountable for the misrepresentations / corruptions of its government (i.e. GDP misreporting), given that the Greek collapse (as with ours) is partly rooted in events beyond its borders, and the actions of a minority.

    I'm not dismissing the clear need for austerity, just pointing out this profound ideological shift forwarded by commentators like the mail. It seems to be part of a broader, worrying tendency toward statism where every step is taken to ensure the will of the electorate is subverted (as per deliberations over the constitutional-level enactment of the fiscal compact).

    I think the people have to bear some responsibility for the actions of the people they elect. Also, I think that the Greek people have been far more complicit in the financial recklessness and malfeasance of their state than the Irish have in theirs. The Irish spent too much and were fiscally irresponsible, but they don't partake in the type massive tax evasion and fraud that is an integral part of Greek society. The Greek people have to pay some price for that culture. I don't relish that and I certainly don't seek it as a form of punishment, but how can the Germans and the Dutch be expected to simply hand over another €140 billion to a society where tax fraud and evasion are still rife, which has a massive military relative to its means, and which treats promises and commitments as mere fripperies?

    The Greeks have a choice: implement the measures and, to put it frankly, cop the fup on, or withdraw from the euro. They have, for the most part, been the authors of this mess, and yet they seem to want everyone but themselves to go the distance to clear it up.

    And all this anti-German rhstoric and flag burning is really shameful.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,980 ✭✭✭meglome


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    Would you argue, then, that in a democracy the citizens are not responsible for the actions of their government, and/or have no responsibility for ensuring that their government is honest and sensible?

    How is it that the Greeks have a government who appear to have more or less swindled their way into the eurozone, and who have very evidently spent much more money than their state can afford ever since, and lied about it - while the Germans (and the Scandinavians, etc etc) don't? Was bad government somehow imposed on Greece?

    cordially,
    Scofflaw

    I've been (probably foolishly) arguing this over on the Journal for the last few days. It's so easy to say the word 'banker' like you might say the word paedophile and many are doing just that. Like somehow these bankers managed to single-handedly bring the whole country down. The reality is far more complicated and is very much rooted in Greek society. They did this to themselves and no amount of rioting will change that.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 465 ✭✭pacquiao


    meglome wrote: »
    I've been (probably foolishly) arguing this over on the Journal for the last few days. It's so easy to say the word 'banker' like you might say the word paedophile and many are doing just that. Like somehow these bankers managed to single-handedly bring the whole country down. The reality is far more complicated and is very much rooted in Greek society. They did this to themselves and no amount of rioting will change that.
    It's rooted in every society. Perhaps the Greeks should get a lobotomy?
    I wonder what the tax receipts were leading up to them joining the euro currency?


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    pacquiao wrote: »
    Is a treaty not international law though?

    Oof...that's a tough one. Yes, no, a bit, sometimes...all seem applicable. Somewhere between law and a contract, and perhaps more towards the latter, with breach of that contract being subject to international law.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,483 ✭✭✭Ostrom


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    Would you argue, then, that in a democracy the citizens are not responsible for the actions of their government, and/or have no responsibility for ensuring that their government is honest and sensible?

    How is it that the Greeks have a government who appear to have more or less swindled their way into the eurozone, and who have very evidently spent much more money than their state can afford ever since, and lied about it - while the Germans (and the Scandinavians, etc etc) don't? Was bad government somehow imposed on Greece?

    cordially,
    Scofflaw

    Such a question invokes a false assumption of rationality. What scope was there for such critical input, given that liberalisation of trade and financial capital constituted the essential basis of every inter-state agreement over the last twenty years? (I really would like to hear your thoughts on this - I dont have an answer)

    My point is that explanations should probably be sought at a levels beyond national mentality - there are commonalities at work that suggest a greater level of complexity*. The problem is that seeking out what is essentially 'Greek' about this - significant as such local nuances are - results in uncritical, reductionist rubbish like those articles from the mail, or the above comment that my replies are somehow 'anti-German rhetoric'.

    *i.e. Marxist answer - logical response to ensuring free movement of capital / Instrumentalist answer - conscious, class-based centralisation of power, neither of which I particualrly subscribe to


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,980 ✭✭✭meglome


    pacquiao wrote: »
    It's rooted in every society. Perhaps the Greeks should get a lobotomy?
    I wonder what the tax receipts were leading up to them joining the euro currency?

    Well stuff like tax evasion and corruption exist in every society but the Greeks seem to have it a whole special level.
    Astonishingly, only 5,000 people in a country of 12 million admit to earning more than £90,000 a year — a salary that would not be enough to buy a garden shed in Kifissia.

    Now I am very loath to quote the Daily Fail but I did see these kinds of figures elsewhere too. The Greek government is saying that perhaps €50 billion a year is being lost through tax evasion. Can't say if that's correct but if it is it's unbelievable.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 465 ✭✭pacquiao


    meglome wrote: »
    Well stuff like tax evasion and corruption exist in every society but the Greeks seem to have it a whole special level.



    Now I am very loath to quote the Daily Fail but I did see these kinds of figures elsewhere too. The Greek government is saying that perhaps €50 billion a year is being lost through tax evasion. Can't say if that's correct but if it is it's unbelievable.
    That number is huge. So huge in fact that surely the government ministers knew about it?


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    efla wrote: »
    Such a question invokes a false assumption of rationality.

    Does it? Surely if one claims the assumption of rationality is false one is essentially stating that the Greeks aren't responsible by virtue of not being rational.
    efla wrote: »
    What scope was there for such critical input, given that liberalisation of trade and financial capital constituted the essential basis of every inter-state agreement over the last twenty years? (I really would like to hear your thoughts on this - I dont have an answer)

    I'm not sure of the relevance of that, because it seems to me to beg some enormous questions - it assumes that liberalisation of trade and financial capital are (a) the root of Greece's problems; and (b) something that could prevent reform of Greek government. The former seems merely wrong, or at least out of line with the prima facie evidence - the latter seems frankly bizarre.
    efla wrote: »
    My point is that explanations should probably be sought at a levels beyond national mentality - there are commonalities at work that suggest a greater level of complexity*. The problem is that seeking out what is essentially 'Greek' about this - significant as such local nuances are - results in uncritical, reductionist rubbish like those articles from the mail, or the above comment that my replies are somehow 'anti-German rhetoric'.

    *i.e. Marxist answer - logical response to ensuring free movement of capital / Instrumentalist answer - conscious, class-based centralisation of power, neither of which I particualrly subscribe to

    Why should explanations be sought "at levels beyond national mentality", though? What commonalities "suggest a greater level of complexity", beyond the obvious commonalities of public debt and market borrowing? Which other current crises are the result of what appears to be reckless borrowing, feckless spending, and relentless massage of figures at a state and individual level?

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,483 ✭✭✭Ostrom


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    Does it? Surely if one claims the assumption of rationality is false one is essentially stating that the Greeks aren't responsible by virtue of not being rational.

    I'm not sure of the relevance of that, because it seems to me to beg some enormous questions - it assumes that liberalisation of trade and financial capital are (a) the root of Greece's problems; and (b) something that could prevent reform of Greek government. The former seems merely wrong, or at least out of line with the prima facie evidence - the latter seems frankly bizarre.

    My point is that there is something fundamentally unsettling about the dominant rhetoric of unqualified 'collective responsibility'. Your responses imply a degree of active responsibility by the electorate to ensure accountability which is truly possible only under conditions of complete information. If politics is as selectively issue-driven and localised as Ireland, I find it difficult to imagine how any such culture/system of accountability could be expected (this is not an excuse or dismissal, I believe it is fundamental).

    Furthermore, if the roots of this Greek crisis are in an official misrepresentation of its debt-GDP ratios, surely this underscores the inequity of burdening the majority electorate with austerity? My argument is not against the specifics, or necessity of the austerity programme, but with the inequity of its consequences, and the manner of its public representation and justification.
    Scofflaw wrote: »
    Why should explanations be sought "at levels beyond national mentality", though? What commonalities "suggest a greater level of complexity", beyond the obvious commonalities of public debt and market borrowing? Which other current crises are the result of what appears to be reckless borrowing, feckless spending, and relentless massage of figures at a state and individual level?

    Because you appear capable of conceptualising in terms of its economic roots, rather than solely a product of national character - I believe (perhaps arrogantly) most would hold to the latter


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,980 ✭✭✭meglome


    pacquiao wrote: »
    That number is huge. So huge in fact that surely the government ministers knew about it?

    Sure agreed. I think the point is everyone knew about. I've seen corruption first hand in different countries and in places like Romania it was systemic. It was the system. Greece seems to be the same with added tax evasion.


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    efla wrote: »
    My point is that there is something fundamentally unsettling about the dominant rhetoric of unqualified 'collective responsibility'. Your responses imply a degree of active responsibility by the electorate to ensure accountability which is truly possible only under conditions of complete information. If politics is as selectively issue-driven and localised as Ireland, I find it difficult to imagine how any such culture/system of accountability could be expected (this is not an excuse or dismissal, I believe it is fundamental).

    Unfortunately, that just moves the problem one stage back. Is it not the electorate's responsibility to be informed? If politics in Greece is as selectively issue-driven and localised as Ireland, is that the outcome of an imposed system or an expression of the preference of the Greek public? In Ireland it certainly seems to be an expression of preference, and I see no reason to assume differently in the case of Greece.

    I'm not measuring the Greeks here against some unattainable perfect democracy - I'm measuring them against the Scandinavian nations, who aren't perfect, but are hella better than Greece, alas.
    efla wrote: »
    Furthermore, if the roots of this Greek crisis are in an official misrepresentation of its debt-GDP ratios, surely this underscores the inequity of burdening the majority electorate with austerity? My argument is not against the specifics, or necessity of the austerity programme, but with the inequity of its consequences, and the manner of its public representation and justification.

    There are two problems there: first, that if the majority electorate benefited from the borrowing and spending that led to the austerity, and voted for parties that did the borrowing and spending without asking too many questions about where the money came from, it's hard to call imposition of austerity at the same general level inequitable.

    Second, with respect to the internal distribution of the burdens of austerity - again, the problem here would seem to be that the Greek public accepted the buying off of certain power blocs and corporate interests within Greek society during the good times, and are now stuck with the entrenched mechanisms of inequity that created. Again, that's similar to Ireland - we allowed vested interests to be bought off during the boom to give us a quiet life, and are now outraged when they defend their buy-off at a time when action by those strengthened interests would be potentially crippling - a bit of reaping what one sowed.
    efla wrote: »
    Because you appear capable of conceptualising in terms of its economic roots, rather than solely a product of national character - I believe (perhaps arrogantly) most would hold to the latter

    Unfortunately, though, I'm not being offered much in the way of economic roots as opposed to national particularism as an explanation for the particular form of the crisis in Greece. It seems rather more the case that Greece used the market perception of being eurozone-backed to go on a borrowing spree, and used the proceeds partly to pretend to a level of public wealth that their economy couldn't actually support, partly to sustain their arms race with their much larger eastern neighbour, and partly to buy off potentially divisive forces within Greek society by ensuring that there was a superfluity of pork for everyone.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


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  • Registered Users Posts: 73 ✭✭Crosswind


    Some things not known by many:

    1) This government was elected by saying that going to IMF would be a disaster. Latest polls give an 8% to their party.
    2) All funds given so far, were given to cover previous loans.
    3) These funds were also given by promising that Greece will buy tanks & submarines from Germany and frigates from France. During the last decade, Greece spent several billions to buy subs from Germany. Germany was paid in full for all 6 of them, delivered only one and this one is malfunctioning (cannot sail straight, tilts on one side-not joking here).
    4) Big public sector: Greece has several dozens of islands. Would it be better to have a school on each island or get the students every morning on a boat to go to a bigger island to study? Especially in the winter the winds are quite dangerous on the Aegean sea.
    Same for health centres/hospitals and all public services.
    5) Loans: 1st loan was given in Greece during the liberation war in the 1800s. Out of 800.000 pounds, banks kept half of it as security while middle men appointed by the banks kept 30%. Despite this, Greece had to repay the whole sum, something that was done in the 1980s or 1990s!
    6) Could someone explain how austerity measures lead to growth? Or at least one country where IMF measures were successful?
    7) Tax evasion: Current system taxes up to 60% businesses, so you understand that the system itself promotes tax evasion.

    You can blame the Greeks for being stupid enough to believe the two parties that govern the country during the last 30 years, but that's about it.


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