European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 159

On July 06 2015 12:41 Cam Connor wrote:
Interesting stat: if greece wasn't in the eurozone, eurozone economic output would only decrease by 1.8% and gdp per capita would increase 1.5%
Largely useless statistic, but still food for thought

On July 05 2015 19:22 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
There was an interview with a retired boss of the Swedish tax collection agency (40 years of experience) who had been in Greece as an expert adviser together with an Irish expert. His opinion is that it basically doesn't matter what kind of tax changes are done because the Greek government lacks any ability to collect them.

Him and his colleague were sent to assist the new boss of Greek tax collection. They expected corruption which they found but they also found out that the entire organization was inefficient to the point of uselessness. Tax collection was done by outdated and incompetent methods for example manually checking trucks cargo manifests in the field instead of seriously reviewing companies books, almost all methods were completely outdated for a modern society. Things like all the archives being in paper form and spread all over the country also made serious tax collection almost impossible.

The new boss also faced pressure from the employees and from the politicians to keep the current conditions. After a year he was fired for achieving nothing.
He describes the general attitude of politicians and employees to be "wait for this to blow over and continue business as usual". His opinion is that 1 person is not enough for reform, there needs to be a group of 5-6 preferably young, well trained ambitious, driven and above all extremely motivated to the cause of reforming Greek tax collection and they need to have the political backing do whatever it takes both in their own department and others (centralizing all records necessary for a start, rooting out corruption at all levels) in order for any tax reforms to be meaningful at all.

Edit: He was there earlier in the crisis, before Syriza. Just to clarify.

On July 06 2015 15:02 zlefin wrote:
Hurray, a scumbag who lied and tried to ruin his country has left office. Pity there's nothing he can really be prosecuted for.

On July 06 2015 18:07 Taguchi wrote:


No no no, we're not talking about Samaras, former leader of ND, here. That was Varoufakis resigning, the only guy in the Eurogroup room who had a grasp on what was needed to resolve stuff (or, more likely, the only guy with the balls to say so, I'm sure a few others were smart enough too), the only guy with whom the IMF agreed in the end, the guy who pushed for a stop to extend and pretend. Don't confuse these people. Even if Greece is left on its own, Varoufakis hugely contributed to it becoming a better country.

So a few days ago I wrote that Europe would have Tsipras's head on a silver platter, then pay up. After the referendum result it looks like they'll have to settle for Varoufakis. So much pettiness.

Also, what is the point of Sigmar Gabriel having his own party at this point? Just merge with Merkel and be done with it.

@c0ldfusion, under the troika the Greek tax collection agency was left with ~200 people who were supposed to check businesses across the entire country. Because the government was barred from hiring new personnel, as part of the cuts it had to go through to 'reform'. Yes, that kind of 'reform' again. Tax collection is in a much worse place today than it was 6 years ago. But you won't hear about that from the news, it doesn't really fit with the austerity success story, the amateur hour of Syriza or the image of generally inept and reckless Greeks.

On July 06 2015 18:07 Taguchi wrote:


No no no, we're not talking about Samaras, former leader of ND, here. That was Varoufakis resigning, the only guy in the Eurogroup room who had a grasp on what was needed to resolve stuff (or, more likely, the only guy with the balls to say so, I'm sure a few others were smart enough too), the only guy with whom the IMF agreed in the end, the guy who pushed for a stop to extend and pretend. Don't confuse these people. Even if Greece is left on its own, Varoufakis hugely contributed to it becoming a better country.

So a few days ago I wrote that Europe would have Tsipras's head on a silver platter, then pay up. After the referendum result it looks like they'll have to settle for Varoufakis. So much pettiness.

Also, what is the point of Sigmar Gabriel having his own party at this point? Just merge with Merkel and be done with it.

@c0ldfusion, under the troika the Greek tax collection agency was left with ~200 people who were supposed to check businesses across the entire country. Because the government was barred from hiring new personnel, as part of the cuts it had to go through to 'reform'. Yes, that kind of 'reform' again. Tax collection is in a much worse place today than it was 6 years ago. But you won't hear about that from the news, it doesn't really fit with the austerity success story, the amateur hour of Syriza or the image of generally inept and reckless Greeks.

On July 06 2015 19:33 zlefin wrote:
I have been quite thoroughly paying attention to numerous sources from numerous countries, and to the substantive details. I believe it is you folk who need to reconsider your positions.

On July 06 2015 19:44 Taguchi wrote:


Sure. Debt is sustainable then?