Greece General Discussion

[ag]

The new government announced some measures today, but didn't see anything about its income tax hike to 75% on incomes beyond 500k euros.  Has it said anything about this yet?

That proposal was in their May 2012 platform and they have not mentioned it since. There was zero mention of tax increases in the platform they ran on in 2015

Well, unless they raise SOME taxes, how are they going to fund their spending - especially, as they are refusing to sell things off.

Honestly, if I were them, I would sell Western Thrace to the Turks. Erdogan would pay a fortune

[ag]

The new government announced some measures today, but didn't see anything about its income tax hike to 75% on incomes beyond 500k euros.  Has it said anything about this yet?

That proposal was in their May 2012 platform and they have not mentioned it since. There was zero mention of tax increases in the platform they ran on in 2015

Well, unless they raise SOME taxes, how are they going to fund their spending - especially, as they are refusing to sell things off.

Honestly, if I were them, I would sell Western Thrace to the Turks. Erdogan would pay a fortune

Well, raising taxes have no use with the widespread tax evasion. Raising taxes on people not paying any won't make any change.

Well, he could take their kids hostage, or something.

[ag]

The new government announced some measures today, but didn't see anything about its income tax hike to 75% on incomes beyond 500k euros.  Has it said anything about this yet?

That proposal was in their May 2012 platform and they have not mentioned it since. There was zero mention of tax increases in the platform they ran on in 2015

Well, unless they raise SOME taxes, how are they going to fund their spending - especially, as they are refusing to sell things off.

Honestly, if I were them, I would sell Western Thrace to the Turks. Erdogan would pay a fortune

Well, raising taxes have no use with the widespread tax evasion. Raising taxes on people not paying any won't make any change.

Well, he could take their kids hostage, or something.

Well, yes, something has to be done about widespread tax evasion. I happen to think it's more logical to build a solid system preventing it and then raising taxes than the reverse. Doing it the other way would punish people paying taxes and would likely increase tax evasion.

Ok, fine. Do Germans have to coninue financing Greek government in the interim?

[ag]

That is pretty damn clever.  So far Tsipras has played his hand very well.

It is clever, but dangerous. Because they could call the bluff and tell him to go get his refinancing in Moscow. Hitching himself to a sinking ship is dangerous. Also, that brings into the conversation not merely the eurozone, but EU itself - the others might decide that European collective decision-making would be better without any Greece involved. And leaving both euro and EU would lead to a real humanitarian disaster in Greece.

[ag]

Tsipras appointed as his External Affairs Minister a well-known Putin admirer with ties to the infamous Aleksandr Dugin.
Splendid.

Well, this is going to be entertaining

[ag]

Amateur Hour Keeps Traders Guessing. Bank stocks in Athens lost about $11 billion of their value after ministers in the newly formed government made some populist proclamations, namely, pledging to increase the nation’s minimum wage and halt privatizations.  Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis Dragassakis told people to essentially ignore those comments today, saying they were the product of inexperienced officials speaking out of turn. Greece is, he said, “interested in attracting investors.”

Russian investors, I presume.

[ag]

Maybe they really are drinking the Kool Aid.

Most likely, they are. Well, you know what happens to those who do.

If I were Erdogan, I would start planning for taking over Western Thrace.

[ag]

I mean, we should not be making fun of the Greeks. The old parties screwed up badly - the voters had every right to run them out of town. Pity, they chose the Kool Aid crowd instead - but they took a long time to be pushed that way.

Greece should have never adopted the euro. And, of course, once the crisis started, the right thing to do would have been to negotiate the return to the drachma and devaluation. Trying to deflate out of trouble was politically unsustainable - everybody knew that. Well, acting on wish and prayer, the "responsible politicians" responsibled themselves into irrelevance.

Now, of course, Greece´s foreign partners do share some blame. They should have, actually, proposed the way out of euro, and offered to provide means to soften the blow. But, then, again, German negotiators are not supposed to be representing the interests of Greek voters - Greece elects its own government for thos purposes. Unfortunately, it now elected a bunch of idiots, it seems. But, given the last few years, it is easy to see how one can think that even idiots would do better.

[ag]

 I think in the end Tsipras will fold and come crawling back.

I doubt. He was elected on this. And not that he would ideologically object to a bank nationalization.

It will be an awful period for an average Greek, of course. That is why I have long believed that it should have been a "normal" Greek government that should have taken Greece out of the euro: they would have been able to do it more gently. This way, it will be much harder. And dealing with the consequences will take a generation, at least.

My condolences to the Greek public.

[ag]

PASOK are coming in to the left of Syriza. Yes, that PASOK

Nice to be a minor party, completely out of power - you may be as irresponsible as you like. Something, surely, SYRIZA can very much empathize with.

[ag]

Tsipras lost 38 MPs voting either no or present.

Where can one look up the results?

[ag]

This is awesome: http://www.random-austerity-measure-generator.com/

Any one of those would do a lot more good for Greece than actual activity of Mr. Varoufakis

[ag]

Looking at the recent polls, at the very least I'm glad the Greek people have yet to lose their sanity, based on the GD/ANEL/KKE numbers.

I, actually, quite admire the Greeks. They are dealing with the situation better than I would have expected.