Stop ****ing whinging about being hard done by! Just pay your ****ing taxes like rest of us! Rant over.
Never going to happen, worst run country in the world with a black economy that has ruled for centuries. Make the Italians look honest.
Many people suffering badly over there, all victims of the global banking crisis. Funny how the people who caused all this are still getting their massive wages and bonuses while millions are suffering from their actions.
There's a big difference between offering people credit and forcing them to take it. They chose to borrow so heavily, so why shouldn't they have to re-pay it? The suffering is self-inflicted so far as I can see.
One of their ministers on the radio yesterday said they struggle to recover taxes, from even their own public sector employees, like teachers and police. Sounded like a third world state.
Taxes have soared in the last few years, public employees have had their wages slashed again and again, pensions have been slashed, prices continue to rise. Unemployment is sky high, especially for the young who consider themselves a lost generation. Every supermarket has large, permanent containers to donate food to the hungry, there have been soup kitchens in the cities for years to feed ordinary , poor people and the austerity measures simply result in putting more people out of work and reducing tax revenue. It's pointless imposing new taxes when there is no money and less people in work.
You know when our family were on holiday in kefalonea 2002. I was talking to a Greek woman in a bar she was 54 years old and recieving her old age pension don't know how much money like . Just saying
Greek teachers can retire at 50. Meanwhile the rest of us have to work another 15 years and pay our taxes so that you can meet 54 retired oap's in greek bars!
Things have changed a lot in the last few years and if you only look at the problem superficially you can't understand. Here are a few things to consider. A secondary school teacher I know got about £7000 a year four years ago........compare that with the UK. When he austerity measures were brought in teachers' salaries were CUT by 10%. The next year they were cut again by 20%. They are asking for further cuts this year. His wife retired early as you COULD if you had worked for 25 years ( it helped to cut youth unemployment) and her pension has been cut by 40% in the last four years. They are asking for more cuts this year. It seems that the fat cats and politicians got very fat and the poor people are losing everything to pay during this crisis. Surprise , surprise.
My impression of the Greeks is from what some have bragged about over the years -- ''we work in the tourist bars /restaurant/hotels for 6months on tax free cash wages, then spend 6 months back in the city claiming benefits''. Won't pay in to a system but expect it to hand out. Then there is the trick of leaving building work in a habitable state but just ''slightly'' unfinished, so they don't have to pay their equivalent of council tax
She wasnt A teacher she owned a supermarket that was actually closing down because a big hypermarket opened across the road. She ripped me off selling old metaxa for high price.
And if you talk to some English wide boys you might get similar stories . I know a lot of ordinary Greeks who are decent and hard working. Their social system evolved differently to ours and it was more important to look after your family , friends and political affiliates than to pay into the system when the Turks ran the country and took everything
To be fair they are only asking to be allowed to pay back the loans on the same basis as Germany was allowed after the war. Back then they had to pay back the loan as percentage of the growth of their GDP or something like that. What it meant was that the repayments did not add to the resessionary forces in the economy but allowed the injection of funds to do what they were meant to crest growth, which then allowed the debts to be paid back. The other thing to think about is that Germany has refused to pay back the debts to Greece for the way they looted that country. A recent estimate of this debt put it at more than all of the money Greece currently owes.
Only Greeks I know was when I was stationed in Cyprus. And they caused far more bother than the ****ing Turks did.
I know mate. I was just adding what I'd heard to what you said. I totally get that the working class is suffering over there while the rich get richer. But its totally self-inflicted. They joined the EU and thought they could ride on the coat-tails of the richer countries. Their tax system is notoriously inept. They passed laws allowing whole swathes of the public sector to retire in their 50's and no one paused for a second to think how the **** they would pay for it. Next thing you see is young greeks being interviewed on the news saying they're coming to London for the work. And now they're kissing Putin's ass for more credit. Well **** 'em. Got no sympathy for them at all.
