Difficult Times :(

[600+]

Really just writing to get it off my chest but it's something that has been bothering me for a few days now.

The financial situation in Greece, where all my family is, is just a disgrace!!! Once again the country is being made the testing ground for economic measures that would criple the richest country let alone the almost bankrupt ones.

Now the idiot of a PM has sent the country in turmoil by announcing a referencum vote!!!!

The worry and problems my family are experiencing is making their lives extremely hard!! Properties that my grandparents worked hard for to provide their children with some security are now either empty or being considered for sale. Mum's business is not doing well and she can't afford an employee anymore which means that at 60 almost she has to work 14hr days 7 days a week. Dad is similar......

Don't know what else to say or do really....I'm sad, disappointed, angry, anxious, worried.


Oh before anyone says "you should have paid your taxes then!" we were one of the stupid ones that did. Plus that argument doesn't really hold any truth. Maybe if we were to shoot all the corrupt politicians we could have solved the problem a lot earlier.

[husky03]

feel for you mate-its a sign of the times that the majority of people have been living outwith their means for years now all over the world and its down to those that graft to pay for the fix when it goes t1ts up.

[Mr Speirs]

Has the PM survived the confidence vote? I thought he would only get support if he didn't do a referendum vote?

It's going to go tits up for all of us soon.

Bonkers thing is though that out of Spain Portugal and Ireland..Greece owes the least.

I'm struggling to understand where all this money for bailouts is coming from. Although it's the tax payers that will ultimately pay for it, it doesn't explain who has that money to lend.

[Terah]

I'm struggling to understand where all this money for bailouts is coming from. Although it's the tax payers that will ultimately pay for it, it doesn't explain who has that money to lend.

They are trying to tap China for it. There doesn't seem to be much detail on how else it might be funded.

[Specialone]

Sad mate, I understand your frustrations and worries.

I know no one will agree but I think they are secretly just printing more money, I know it's supposed to destabilise economies if countries do this but they aren't, the EU are doing it in for them.

Initially the Germans paid most of the money that went to Greece but this was say before the figures got to trillions, the EU doesn't have this amount of money, it's money comes from it's members and half of them are in the sh1te as well.

Because Greece really only has tourism and no manufacturing or exports to talk of, I cannot see how they will ever get back in the black tbh.

[Spiderman]

I for one thought the PM did the right thing after readin some comment from greeks. After all he is not the "owner" of greece's riches, he is simply a guy voted to do a job for a few years so how would it be correct of him to decide that the acropolis is sold to Disney for example? Those are the countries riches, not his personal possessions to sell so its only correct to ask the people to choose.

The sadest part is that it feels like they are in a doomed if you do and doomed if you dont problem here.

What i would like to know is who exactly they owe all thsi oney to, the IMF? The World Bank? Whoever it is clearly has plenty of mney to lend this much out and not "need" it back in order to lend more and be able to write off 100billion of it too. So who are they and why do they need that money if they have so much already?

OK i know im not talking at the elevated level of world fiscal policies and monetary instruments etc but seriously cant we just reset all countries world debts and let all govts start from a position of not being in debt?

[600+]

Confidence vote is midnight tonight.....noone really knows how this is going to go!!!

The reason why only Greece is going through this **** and not Spain, Portugal etc is because Greece was the first place where the austerity measures applied first. Then they realised that the measures where to strict and didn't apply them to the full extent to the other countries. BUT still went ahead with destroying Greece.

The money is coming from the banks! All that is happening is that the banks lent to EU and they give it to Greece (in theory). Then Greece pays it back to the banks and the circle starts again.

A farce really just to destroy peoples lifes.

[600+]

I for one thought the PM did the right thing

Greece has always been governed by two families Papandreou and Karamanlis. Between these two money has exchanged hands and riches have been built.

None of them has ever worked an honest days job and wouldn't have the vaguest as to how really money is earned.

They have been eating with golden cuttlery for all these years!!!

[Spiderman]

Sad truth is most "modern" countries are that way. 1% owns 98% of the wealth and the rest of us are wages slaves paying taxes to keep us poor.

My own country went thru years of turmoil, not financially but via a revolution so i totally know how you feel and how difficult it is to be so powerless to do anything but sit and watch the process destroy everything.

[Sid Squid]

Papandreou is not the problem - I think he's shown incredible decency by standing by the difficult decisions that have been obliged by the situation.
As for being an idiot for suggesting a referendum, I just can't understand that way of thinking. If the bailout succeeds the Greek nation will be in even greater debt for a very very long time. Surely the people who's taxes for a damn long period will be the payment of that debt should be the ones to decide. How is he an idiot for wanting to put the question to the people who will ultimately pay?

There is a vast debt that Greece owes, that's not in question and it's not the doing of the present government. Whether the debt is defaulted upon, or the bailout deal is accepted the burden of that will fall upon the Greek people - surely it's right that it's they that should decide.

The Euro is the route to, and the root of this horrible situation - make no mistake about that, Brussels wants the bailout to succeed for their own sake - nothing to do with Greece at all - they want it to keep their tool of control - the Euro - in being. Don't be in doubt about that.

[pegasus]

Moses, I feel so sorry for you and your family.

But all I can say to you is that for thousands of years the Greeks have been invaded and raped and pillaged, and they have always came through it stronger, and wiser.....whatever happens to your family and the rest of Greece will happen to the rest of europe eventually, and if by some miracle there is a way through this utter madness then I know that the Greeks will find it.

I look at Greece in this hour of need and I dont see devastation, I see Democracy making a stand and fighting back.

Good luck and best wishes to your family Moses.

P

[Bluefish]

I agree with spidy's point that they should just cancel out all dept, cos everybody owes everybody else and it's just going round in circles.
And every year we keep borrowing more money but who do we borrow it from that never gets said? As has been said on the news it would be better if certain countries were not part of the euro, but you can't leave because it will cause more financial ruin, bit Hotel calafornia innit.

[dizzyblonde]

Totally understand where you are coming from Moses. We've been watching this situation building up for months, obviously with Cyprus being tied so closely. First wiff was when we were on holiday last February, and things were grim, you tend to notice when you aren't there with rose tinted glasses on like most holiday makers.

Its an utter disgrace that Greece is being used as an experimental guinea pig, before anyone shouts at me, it could have been any other of Spain, Portugal, Italy. This situation is probably painted slightly obscure to us over here, and a slightly differing picture is apparent in Greece, we all know what the media is like.

I would be very surprised if the rest of the Euro didn't go ass up. Theres a lot going on behind closed doors that the little people aren't allowed to know. Its like a game of chess, and at some point its going to be stalemate. Make sure theres plenty under the mattress, because its going to be a bump ride for everyone, and not a pretty outcome whatever country of the EU you happen to be in.

[dizzyblonde]

bit Hotel calafornia innit.


You can check out any time you like......but you can never leave;)

[DJFridge]

You can check out any time you like......but you can never leave;)

It would have been better if they'd never checked in. Greece was muddling along just fine before politicians with the IQs of fruit flies decided that Greece MUST join the Euro. Politicians with equally small IQs within the Eurozone decided that adding another country would make the Euro look like a better idea. So they allowed Greece to completely falsify their economic figures so that they could let them in. Joining Spain, Italy and Portugal in the "not quite as strong as we're claiming" club.

It's f*&ked up Greece and it's f*&ked up Europe in general. Greece needs to offered an honourable way out of the Eurozone and we'll all be better off. Go Drachma!!

[600+]

Thank you all for your wishes. SidSquid you do speak some truth but Papandreou and his family have benefited from the EU and before for now 3 generations! He is stupid really as he has put the Greeks through all these measures and now they are all agreed and signed for he speaks of referendum........too late!! What's the point when there is no way out whether they vote Yes or No.

The article below summarises for me the situation in Greece!!




By

MARK MAZOWER

YESTERDAY, the whole world was watching Greece (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/greece/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) as its Parliament voted to pass a divisive package of austerity measures that could have critical ramifications for the global financial system. It may come as a surprise that this tiny tip of the Balkan Peninsula could command such attention. We usually think of Greece as the home of Plato and Pericles, its real importance lying deep in antiquity. But this is hardly the first time that to understand Europe’s future, you need to turn away from the big powers at the center of the continent and look closely at what is happening in Athens. For the past 200 years, Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s evolution.

In the 1820s, as it waged a war of independence against the Ottoman Empire (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/o/ottoman_empire/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), Greece became an early symbol of escape from the prison house of empire. For philhellenes, its resurrection represented the noblest of causes. “In the great morning of the world,” Shelley wrote in “Hellas,” his poem about the country’s struggle for independence, “Freedom’s splendor burst and shone!” Victory would mean liberty’s triumph not only over the Turks but also over all those dynasts who had kept so many Europeans enslaved. Germans, Italians, Poles and Americans flocked to fight under the Greek blue and white for the sake of democracy. And within a decade, the country won its freedom.
Over the next century, the radically new combination of constitutional democracy and ethnic nationalism that Greece embodied spread across the continent, culminating in “the peace to end all peace” at the end of the First World War, when the Ottoman, Hapsburg and Russian empires disintegrated and were replaced by nation-states.
In the aftermath of the First World War, Greece again paved the way for Europe’s future. Only now it was democracy’s dark side that came to the fore. In a world of nation-states, ethnic minorities like Greece’s Muslim population and the Orthodox Christians of Asia Minor were a recipe for international instability. In the early 1920s, Greek and Turkish leaders decided to swap their minority populations, expelling some two million Christians and Muslims in the interest of national homogeneity. The Greco-Turkish population exchange was the largest such organized refugee movement in history to that point and a model that the Nazis and others would point to later for displacing peoples in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and India.
It is ironic, then, that Greece was in the vanguard of resistance to the Nazis, too. In the winter of 1940-41, it was the first country to fight back effectively against the Axis powers, humiliating Mussolini in the Greco-Italian war while the rest of Europe cheered. And many cheered again a few months later when a young left-wing resistance fighter named Manolis Glezos climbed the Acropolis one night with a friend and pulled down a swastika flag that the Germans had recently unfurled. (Almost 70 years later, Mr. Glezos would be tear-gassed by the Greek police while protesting the austerity program.) Ultimately, however, Greece succumbed to German occupation. Nazi rule brought with it political disintegration, mass starvation and, after liberation, the descent of the country into outright civil war between Communist and anti-Communist forces.
Only a few years after Hitler’s defeat, Greece found itself in the center of history again, as a front line in the cold war. In 1947, President Harry S. Truman used the intensifying civil war there to galvanize Congress behind the Truman Doctrine and his sweeping peacetime commitment of American resources to fight Communism and rebuild Europe. Suddenly elevated into a trans-Atlantic cause, Greece now stood for a very different Europe — one that had crippled itself by tearing itself apart, whose only path out of the destitution of the mid-1940s was as a junior partner with Washington. As the dollars poured in, American advisers sat in Athens telling Greek policy makers what to do and American napalm scorched the Greek mountains as the Communists were put to flight.
European political and economic integration was supposed to end the weakness and dependency of the divided continent, and here, too, Greece was an emblem of a new phase in its history. The fall of its military dictatorship in 1974 not only brought the country full membership in what would become the European Union (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/european_union/index.html?inline=nyt-org); it also (along with the transitions in Spain and Portugal at the same time) prefigured the global democratization wave of the 1980s and ’90s, first in South America and Southeast Asia and then in Eastern Europe. And it gave the European Union the taste for enlargement and the ambition to turn itself from a small club of wealthy Western European states into a voice for the newly democratic continent as a whole, extending far to the south and east.
And now today, after the euphoria of the ’90s has faded and a new modesty sets in among the Europeans, it falls again to Greece to challenge the mandarins of the European Union and to ask what lies ahead for the continent. The European Union was supposed to shore up a fragmented Europe, to consolidate its democratic potential and to transform the continent into a force capable of competing on the global stage. It is perhaps fitting that one of Europe’s oldest and most democratic nation-states should be on the new front line, throwing all these achievements into question. For we are all small powers now, and once again Greece is in the forefront of the fight for the future.
Mark Mazower is a professor of history at Columbia University.

Τhe New York Times 29.06.2011

[dizzyblonde]

What people don't realise is that whilst watching Greece, Italy has been overshadowed, and its probably far worse for the European economy if that was to blow.

Indeed Greece is at the forefront of democracy again they are after all the oldest democratic nation on the planet. Let them do what they need to do, perhaps the bigger picture should be shown instead of pinning it all on this tiny nation.


On an aside.......is it the face of things to come when HSBC shut their doors, because of 'system glitches' allowing customers no money from ATMs, pay for their shopping at Tesco, or withdraw funds from one of their branches? Which bank will do it next, which ones will go bust? When will the day come when theres more than a couple of hours of no money supply? Yes this happened yesterday afternoon, perhaps someone tripped over the computer and switched the system off...whys it not on the news? Maybe they aren't as rich a bank as they proclaim....after all, the banks have an awful lot riding on the affairs of what goes on in Europe.


The world is skint, the sooner people come to realise this the better. I'd be far better off up some Greek mountain with a self sustained food supply than in a so called rich place if the likes of the IMF etc can't do what they say anymore. Self sustained people don't need money, a rich nation wouldn't know what to do if they had none.

[Dicky Ticker]

Is it the 4th Reich or/ and Yellow people will rule the World according to Nostradamus :confused:---;)

[dizzyblonde]

Interesting point.

4th reich, no, cause if the euro goes, they go bust too,
yellow people, nah, they're lending to the Euro, will go t1ts up too



3rd world war anyone? 2012 sounds around the right time, perhaps in December, and defo on the 21st ;)

[Mr Speirs]

3rd world war anyone? 2012 sounds around the right time, perhaps in December, and defo on the 21st ;)

Ain't guna be long before Germany gets sick of bailing everyone out and then stakes a claim on countries they've lent to.
Might join them this time :)

[dizzyblonde]

Ain't guna be long before Germany gets sick of bailing everyone out and then stakes a claim on countries they've lent to.
Might join them this time :)

No point joining the bully of the EU economy, when they're skint too ;) What they going to do, turn on the rest of Europe proclaiming them as slaves until they cough up? Not likely, they tried that sort of thing before, didn't go down too well.

Best thing to do, is to sew the lot of your cash into a duvet, and use it on a raft to sail away to a far off place, where you can barter your way there with whats sewn up in the duvet! Once there, live a simple life living off the land, waving sticks at people, whilst wearing your tin hat, laughing and shouting 'I told you so'

[Mr Speirs]

No point joining the bully of the EU economy, when they're skint too ;) What they going to do, turn on the rest of Europe proclaiming them as slaves until they cough up? Not likely, they tried that sort of thing before, didn't go down too well.


Yeah they tried it the first time...it didn't work...but they tried it again.

This time though nobody's got any money to defend themselves.

Britain has pretty much made the RAF a desk job.

[Milky Bar Kid]

Meh. I don't understand financial stuff. I don't get how we can just print more money off. Why can't we just so that and get rid of debt? Or can't we all just say lets forget who owes what and start with a clean tab??seeing as we are pretty much all in billions of pounds worth of debt????!

[ravingdavis]

Meh. I don't understand financial stuff. I don't get how we can just print more money off. Why can't we just so that and get rid of debt? Or can't we all just say lets forget who owes what and start with a clean tab??seeing as we are pretty much all in billions of pounds worth of debt????!

We (The BoE) printed money off very carefully in a measure called quantitative easing, the BoE then loaned this money to banks which in turn loan it out to the like of you and me (or companies). To keep doing this beyond reason would cause more harm than good, devaluation of currency, flooding one part of the economy with a disproportionate amount of funds etc. As for just writing off the debt, it sounds simple but no. To put this in context, when you open a bank account (or a savings account) you are lending money to a bank, how would you like it if they just wrote off your account and kept the money? If they did that no one would use bank accounts anymore and the banking system upon which our economy relies would fail. Now apply that on a far grander scale, a national scale, can you imagine the chaos? They have offered a 50% write off of Greek debt at that is nothing short of incredible in my view. I feel sorry for the people of Greece, I really do. They have been badly let down by a massively irresponsible government and are now suffering the consequences.

[anna]

Sadly with the stronger countries like Germany and France making demands on other EU countries that they would never support in their own countries makes it impossible for struggling EU countries to come out ontop.

Whilst German and French Politicians cry for more cuts and austerity measures to be put in place, they decrease their own VAT and increase wages yet again in their countries.

Portugal, Spain, Italy are suffering because their only way out of the tight financial spots is their own exports and sadly the EU have made sure that the red tape is tied tightly around their necks. It wont be long before the noose is fully formed I´m sure.

We have a lot of people here crying to come out of the Euro, sadly though if Portugal were to return to its original currency the debt of the IMF would still remain in Euros and as the Escudo was never very strong it would treble the debt overnight.

Sadly a lot of the original problems come from corruption. Corruption in politicians who embezzle finances ensuring that the ordinary tax payer now have to pay for the others crimes, whilst not only to the original politicians get away with their serious fraudulent crimes, they also walk away with state pensions 10 times higher then any other public sector worker would be entitled to.

The outcries of those that receive bonus´s from banks are ringing in everyones ears but what about those politicians that got us here in the first place, take away their assets and reclaim them as state owned.

[Sid Squid]

Sadly with the stronger countries like Germany and France making demands on other EU countries that they would never support in their own countries makes it impossible for struggling EU countries to come out ontop.
What demands like they pay their bills - yes, how very unfair. The Greeks voted for a wasteful and profligate state that promised high wages for state employees and vast pensions that they could not possibly afford. Easy to say the Greek people bear no responsibility for it, but there were plenty of Greek commentators who pointed out it was pie in the sky politics with borrowed money - but they took it all the same.
Whilst German and French Politicians cry for more cuts and austerity measures to be put in place, they decrease their own VAT and increase wages yet again in their countries. Would it be too obvious to state that neither the German or French governments set wage levels, and what's amiss with them doing right by their own people? Suggesting that things need to be arranged such that financial committments can be met is hardly wrong, is it?
Portugal, Spain, Italy are suffering because their only way out of the tight financial spots is their own exports and sadly the EU have made sure that the red tape is tied tightly around their necks. It wont be long before the noose is fully formed Im sure.
So are we all coming to the realisation that an EU superstate involving economic union is the wrong thing to do as it precludes the flexibility that would allow the various countries economies to function correctly?
We have a lot of people here crying to come out of the Euro, sadly though if Portugal were to return to its original currency the debt of the IMF would still remain in Euros and as the Escudo was never very strong it would treble the debt overnight.It will be difficult - it is the only way forwards. We can't continue to perseve with the criminal stupidity of the Euro when it's proven to cause not solve these problems - the very problems that the Euro's adherents claim it won't allow to occur.
Sadly a lot of the original problems come from corruption. Corruption in politicians who embezzle finances ensuring that the ordinary tax payer now have to pay for the others crimes, whilst not only to the original politicians get away with their serious fraudulent crimes, they also walk away with state pensions 10 times higher then any other public sector worker would be entitled to.And in far away Brussels the EU is less visible and less accountable - and the problem is consequently much worse.
The outcries of those that receive bonus´s from banks are ringing in everyones ears but what about those politicians that got us here in the first place, take away their assets and reclaim them as state owned.
Works for me. We can use that money for the demolition of the EU infrastructure and to pay for the nice parks that we'll create where the European Parliament and the Commission presently stand.

There is plenty to criticise the Germans and French for - but the above aren't entirely fair.

[muzikill]

Can someone explain what the story is behind the rife tax evasion in greece that the news channels touch on but never go in to?

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

[ravingdavis]

Can someone explain what the story is behind the rife tax evasion in greece that the news channels touch on but never go in to?

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

I remember reading somewhere a while ago that it is a 'cultural thing'. Obviously government looks down upon it but whereas over here we all tend do think that tax evasion is a bad thing, in Greece it is considered socially acceptable.

[600+]

Tax Evasion in Greece

I would like to set the record straight here with regards to tax evasion!!

It is NOT socially acceptable in Greece to tax evade. People are almost forced to tax evade because the money they make are never enough to pay for the regular taxes and for the emergency tax laws that are put in place every 6 months.

As an example;

In 2006 you closed your books and paid your taxes.
In 2010 the Government decides that it needs some money and introduces a new tax law which says that in 2010 we will look into the books that you have closed for the last 5 years and back date the new tax law to 2006.

So in effect in 2010 instead of just having to pay the regular tax you now have to pay for the new tax law. This happens regularly so people end up tax evading to afford to have to pay all the "emergency" taxes the corrupt governments come up with.

Also as a comparison Greece is one of the most heavily taxed countries. Here an average salary (£50k) would "cost" you in taxes 33% inc NI.....in Greece an average salary of (25k) would cost you 40% inc NI.

Finally, lets not use the same comb for all in Greece....and it's not the majority...just the lovely politicians and public sector workers that are costing the earth to the country

[tigersaw]

Tax Evasion in Greece


Also as a comparison Greece is one of the most heavily taxed countries. Here an average salary (£50k) would "cost" you in taxes 33% inc NI.....in Greece an average salary of (25k) would cost you 40% inc NI.



From the office of national statistics (2009 figures):

For the tax year ending 5 April 2009 the median gross annual earnings for full-time employees were £25,800, an increase of 2.6 per cent compared with £25,200 in 2008. The median gross annual earnings for men were £28,300, up 2.7 per cent from 2008 and for full-time women were £22,200, up 3.1 per cent.

[600+]

From the office of national statistics (2009 figures):

For the tax year ending 5 April 2009 the median gross annual earnings for full-time employees were £25,800, an increase of 2.6 per cent compared with £25,200 in 2008. The median gross annual earnings for men were £28,300, up 2.7 per cent from 2008 and for full-time women were £22,200, up 3.1 per cent.


And I assume you are trying to correct me that the average salary in the UK is £25k?