cod'ead wrote:Greece has overwhelmingly thrown its support behind Syriza and true to form the establishment has wasted absolutely no time predicting doom and destruction for the country, the Eurozone and potentially the EU as currently configured.
The austerity programme forced upon the Greek citizens has had little to no effect on the oligarchs and political & commercial elite. They still continue to avoid paying taxes and revel in the corruption that has hardly been dented. Instead it is the lower to middle classes but more especially the young who have had the greatest burden. When you perceive you have nothing left to lose, then a radical "solution" becomes more attractive.
The neo-cons and neo-liberals who advocate permanent austerity are the only ones who would ever gain. By refusing to continue to follow the austerity programme, at least Greece may force those holding the purse strings to look to alternatives to austerity. Hopefully Syriza can start to prise financial considerations from those who have been reluctant to contribute for so long. People who have enjoyed the patronage of various regimes from way back in the Metaxas days, may now find that they too must contribute in order to retain their financial advantages.
Next stops: Spain, Portugal and Italy. Unfortunately it looks like we in the UK will just continue to bumble along with our "mustn't grumble" attitude.
Είμαι ΣΥΡΙΖΑ
#IamSYRIZA
Predictable leftist view with no balance.
Greece has a culture of tax avoidance and corruption spread across the population. €28 Billion of tax evaded in 2009 was by the self-employed alone.
Economists estimate that 2million private sector workers are carrying the brunt of the tax load while 1 million public sector employees and 1.3m self employed escape almost financially unscathed.
Chief offenders of the self employed are the professionals - education, engineers, accountants, etc hardly oligarchs.
Then there is the corruption that the OECD estimates in 2009 the size of the Greek grey market was €65 Billion. This was equal to 25% of GDP or €20 Billion in unpaid taxes. The Greeks have the expression "fakelaki" or little envelopes which is the term for bribing the many corrupt public servants.
Greece should never have been allowed to join the Euro zone. The irony is that the country who will not allow any debt to be written off is Germany who I believe is the only European country to have had half their debts (from two world wars) written off in the last 60 years.
Back to the present and quite how an election could have been won with a policy of promising to default on your national debt is worrying. A policy to renegotiate is fine but where do they think the money will come from. If the EU does agree to write off some debt there will be a queue forming behind Italy, Portugal and Spain with their hands held out.
They would have been better not taking the bail out and ditching the failed euro.
