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On July 12 2015 01:53 Nyxisto wrote:
I think increasing VATs is a horrible idea. They're inherently regressive and probably going to slow economic growth even more. I don't understand why Syriza as a left-wing government doesn't introduce a wealth tax.
Because it isn't so easy to tax the wealthy in a globalized world, in which fortunes can be moved abroad in a heartbeat, especially if the rich have only loose ties to the local economy, which is probably true for many wealthy Greeks.
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It's not like Greeks got together and decided to have the political institutions they have. Northern Europeans and Americans take a lot of things for granted that don't yet exist in a solid form in other countries: a functioning legal system, protection of property rights, checks and balances in the political system, an efficient tax collection system, protections against corruption, and so on. These are things that you can't exactly institute through democratic poll - what's on the ballot are not the quality of the institutions, it's who gets to rule over the existing systems. It often takes a stroke of luck, a crisis situation or an era of a very enlightened political class to create strong institutions in a country. It often takes a very long time, and remember, countries like Portugal, Spain and Greece are still relatively young democracies.
There is indeed an opportunity now with the troika - reforms in the institutions can be negotiated by the creditors. Such reforms would be much more important than demanding X% of public deficit targets, and if there's one positive thing to have come out of the referendum is that the debate shifted in that direction. This is why, IMO, there shouldn't be complete debt relief in the short term. Only when the reforms are in fact implemented.
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On July 12 2015 02:19 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 01:55 Paljas wrote:On July 12 2015 01:00 LegalLord wrote:
There is a very slippery slope between nationalism and the fascist movement, and that should not be taken lightly. But don't blame people for having legitimate concerns that their culture is being erased by immigrants.
The idea that immigrants somehow could erase the culture of a country is 100% nonsense and nationalist propaganda, not a legitimate concern. When immigrants come to a country with no interest in integrating into that society (i.e. they don't learn the language, or the cultural practices) and then they try to change the ways of the new country through abuse of the legal system (like bringing Sharia law to Europe), it is reasonable to feel that the host society is being undermined in the process.
good thing that this isnt happening then.
On July 12 2015 02:19 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 01:55 Paljas wrote:On July 12 2015 01:00 LegalLord wrote:
There is a very slippery slope between nationalism and the fascist movement, and that should not be taken lightly. But don't blame people for having legitimate concerns that their culture is being erased by immigrants.
The idea that immigrants somehow could erase the culture of a country is 100% nonsense and nationalist propaganda, not a legitimate concern. It is not just baseless propaganda (because seldom is unfounded propaganda effective). It is legitimate concerns that are being swept under the rug. Yes, it is true that there is a lot of fear-mongering and racist BS spouted by the anti-immigration group. Yes, there is a lot of stupidity in that general direction. But they do have a legitimate point that is not being made well in the mainstream.
what are you talking about. most major parties in europe serve xenophobic ressistements on a regular basis. its is part of the mainstream.
On July 12 2015 02:19 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 01:55 Paljas wrote:On July 12 2015 01:00 LegalLord wrote:
There is a very slippery slope between nationalism and the fascist movement, and that should not be taken lightly. But don't blame people for having legitimate concerns that their culture is being erased by immigrants.
The idea that immigrants somehow could erase the culture of a country is 100% nonsense and nationalist propaganda, not a legitimate concern. Because alongside the racist stupidity, there is a genuine and legitimate concern for the future of a culture that seems to be being erased. I really would like to see that be addressed more openly.
sorry, what culture are you talking about which is being "erased"? immigrants are a minority in every european country. how are they supposed to erase a culture?
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On July 12 2015 03:02 phil.ipp wrote:
but i think they are, as seen with the vote.
it justs no one really brings something new to the table.
they all talk about grexit, but no one says what this really entails.
is all debt voided then? or not? or how much? would they implement the same currency/economic system again afterwards?
maybe they didnt talk about that because it would have shed a bad light on the negotiations but they certainly had to think new strategys through and what they would do when push comes to shove.
maybe im foolish, but i want to see this shit fail hard, i want the grexit, i want that markets lose trust in the other countrys like spain/portugal/italy. i want this whole system collapsed, so people have to start their brain after decades of doing nothing and bring humans a step further, and design something better than what we have now.
They voted No to more austerity. Aka they voted to keep the current unsustainable system
They did not vote for change.
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On July 12 2015 03:10 Maenander wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 01:53 Nyxisto wrote:
I think increasing VATs is a horrible idea. They're inherently regressive and probably going to slow economic growth even more. I don't understand why Syriza as a left-wing government doesn't introduce a wealth tax. Because it isn't so easy to tax the wealthy in a globalized world, in which fortunes can be moved abroad in a heartbeat, especially if the rich have only loose ties to the local economy, which is probably true for many wealthy Greeks.
Increasing property taxes would be an idea. They're pretty hard to avoid.
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that comic ahahaha.
such easy life isn't it, you can keep having money to come in without actually doing anything other than saying 'we made mistakes' and people actually believe you. They shouldn't have passed their 2nd bailout really and now nobody wants to think about if greece failed again in a couple of years. (and they will fail again, god bless eu)
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Well according to 'der Spiegel' Schäuble seems to have proposed a temporary Grexit for at least five years while providing "humantarian, technical and economical support".
If that actually happens I'd be very surprised. I thought for sure they were going to accept the Greek proposal and get a thrid bailout on the way.
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On July 12 2015 03:12 warding wrote:
It's not like Greeks got together and decided to have the political institutions they have. Northern Europeans and Americans take a lot of things for granted that don't yet exist in a solid form in other countries: a functioning legal system, protection of property rights, checks and balances in the political system, an efficient tax collection system, protections against corruption, and so on. These are things that you can't exactly institute through democratic poll - what's on the ballot are not the quality of the institutions, it's who gets to rule over the existing systems. It often takes a stroke of luck, a crisis situation or an era of a very enlightened political class to create strong institutions in a country. It often takes a very long time, and remember, countries like Portugal, Spain and Greece are still relatively young democracies.
There is indeed an opportunity now with the troika - reforms in the institutions can be negotiated by the creditors. Such reforms would be much more important than demanding X% of public deficit targets, and if there's one positive thing to have come out of the referendum is that the debate shifted in that direction. This is why, IMO, there shouldn't be complete debt relief in the short term. Only when the reforms are in fact implemented.
A very good set of points. For as old as the cultures of Europe are, as functioning representative-lead countries, most are very new to it. And there's still true monarchies around. To the point that the last King of Greece is still quite alive.
Since this is Team Liquid, it's also noteworthy the South Korea only became a country with a representative democracy in 1987. Not really that long ago.
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On July 12 2015 03:53 Nyxisto wrote:
Well according to 'der Spiegel' Schäuble seems to have proposed a temporary Grexit for at least five years while providing "humantarian, technical and economical support".
If that actually happens I'd be very surprised. I thought for sure they were going to accept the Greek proposal and get a thrid bailout on the way.
The document could just as well be another part of their negotiation process and that the 'leak' was on purpose to put pressure on Greece to make a better deal for EU.
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9071 Posts
I will be amused if Tsipras resigns on Monday, some centre-right yes man forms a temporary cabinet and everyone currently on the fence in the EU goes 'heres a guy we can trust' and a worse bailout deal for Greece gets sealed in 2 weeks time.
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On July 12 2015 03:53 Nyxisto wrote:
Well according to 'der Spiegel' Schäuble seems to have proposed a temporary Grexit for at least five years while providing "humantarian, technical and economical support".
If that actually happens I'd be very surprised. I thought for sure they were going to accept the Greek proposal and get a thrid bailout on the way.
Its his plan B if the negotiations fail.
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On July 12 2015 03:43 BurningSera wrote:
that comic ahahaha.
such easy life isn't it, you can keep having money to come in without actually doing anything other than saying 'we made mistakes' and people actually believe you. They shouldn't have passed their 2nd bailout really and now nobody wants to think about if greece failed again in a couple of years. (and they will fail again, god bless eu)
Well to cut them some slack, the ECB and IMF were supposed to inspect and oversee the changes/reforms that were supposed to be made in Greece and didn't do a good job on that.
Europe is not ready for a common currency, nor does it really want to be. Every country has their own monetary/fiscal policy, which would be ok if we had a transfer union. However a transfer union does not exist, nor will it ever (in the eurozone).
Greece lacks the investment opportunities. Mario Draghi is desperately trying to get people to invest in greece with subsidies and a low interest rate, but Greece has no companies worth investing in. Banks, 2 Oil companies and private sports betting suppliers. Not exactly promising.
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Well, apparently Finland is playing hard ball now.
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yep apparently Estonia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia are now also voicing their support for this. If they throw out Greece after all of this, this will be the biggest mess in EU politics that has ever happened.
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Quite a few of those are countries with fairly low median incomes. Not surprising they don't want to tax their own citizens to subsidize a country that is historically richer than them.
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On July 12 2015 04:56 Nyxisto wrote:
yep apparently Estonia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia are now also voicing their support for this. If they throw out Greece after all of this, this will be the biggest mess in EU politics that has ever happened.
I guess they hoped Greece would leave on its own accord and save them the fallout of having to kick them out.
Now that Greece has come crawling backing back begging for a deal they are making a stand.
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On July 12 2015 05:05 cLutZ wrote:
Quite a few of those are countries with fairly low median incomes. Not surprising they don't want to tax their own citizens to subsidize a country that is historically richer than them.
Can´t blame them for that I guess. Especially if some of them already had austerity themselves.
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On July 12 2015 04:56 Nyxisto wrote:
yep apparently Estonia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia are now also voicing their support for this. If they throw out Greece after all of this, this will be the biggest mess in EU politics that has ever happened.
Apparently the Finnish party True Finns threatens to pull the plug on the current Finnish government if Finland supports a third bailout.
Ladies and gentlement, please welcome "petty nationalism". This trend has me very worried, especially since it is no longer unique to the extreme right.
On the other hand, those countries have gone through significant austerity measures (The Netherlands as well), so it is to be expected that they won't take a soft stance.
Ironically this will enable Greece to just shift the blame.
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On July 12 2015 05:15 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 04:56 Nyxisto wrote:
yep apparently Estonia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia are now also voicing their support for this. If they throw out Greece after all of this, this will be the biggest mess in EU politics that has ever happened. Apparently the Finnish party True Finns threatens to pull the plug on the current Finnish government if Finland supports a third bailout. Ladies and gentlement, please welcome "petty nationalism". This trend has me very worried, especially since it is no longer unique to the extreme right. On the other hand, those countries have gone through significant austerity measures (The Netherlands as well), so it is to be expected that they won't take a soft stance. Ironically this will enable Greece to just shift the blame.
Greek blame is a non-issue for Euope tbh. So long as their own people are behind the choice they make they wont care what the Greeks think.
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On July 12 2015 04:43 DrCooper wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 03:43 BurningSera wrote:
that comic ahahaha.
such easy life isn't it, you can keep having money to come in without actually doing anything other than saying 'we made mistakes' and people actually believe you. They shouldn't have passed their 2nd bailout really and now nobody wants to think about if greece failed again in a couple of years. (and they will fail again, god bless eu) Well to cut them some slack, the ECB and IMF were supposed to inspect and oversee the changes/reforms that were supposed to be made in Greece and didn't do a good job on that. Europe is not ready for a common currency, nor does it really want to be. Every country has their own monetary/fiscal policy, which would be ok if we had a transfer union. However a transfer union does not exist, nor will it ever (in the eurozone). Greece lacks the investment opportunities. Mario Draghi is desperately trying to get people to invest in greece with subsidies and a low interest rate, but Greece has no companies worth investing in. Banks, 2 Oil companies and private sports betting suppliers. Not exactly promising.
From what i understand is that Greece has a strong attitude that they didn't let ECB/IMF get into their government/management at all (or very limited anyway), i thought that would be the focus point in this 3rd bailout? I mean look at Ireland, troika must have literally stormed into the central government and fixed/changed all the shitty policies from the ground, not sure what exactly happened back in that 2-3 years but ireland did listen and made changes accordingly; unlike Greece, which in my head they are a bunch of barbarians who are full of themselves and stubborn (and lazy).
I was in athens back then and some locals i spoke with surprised me about many of them basically work half day (9am-2/3pm) and nobody actually paying tax in the country (and some people do that for decades). I don't believe that is entirely true but it is shocking to see how a nation functions like that (or anywhere near that). It is also obvious that the nation spent their bailout money to continue their luxury lifestyle rather than actually cut down their spendings etc (like every other eu countries since 2010).
The worst thing is that even when the greeks are in this deep hell hole, i bet they still manage to get more money to live per month than most of the people in eastern/baltic countries. No country should get into this kind of deep hole in the first place, and i definitely don't agree on greece lacking investment opportunities, i was in thessaloniki too and god look at those rich landlords lol.
I know my post is rather personal (because i honestly don't know much about them), for all i care they should start selling their temples etc just to get their shit sorted. Many people (including me) in west europe were fucked so hard by the recession in the past couple of years and you really don't see people spend/live their lives like the greeks in the past 5 years.
+ Show Spoiler +
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