Interesting aggressive denunciations of IMF, ECB and Eurozone finance ministers on cable channels like RT (Russia Today?). CNN just said it will have live report on the Greek Parliament vote in 15 minutes.

It hit me looking at the CNN video of buildings on fire. The caption called them “historic buildings.” Could it be that Greeks are burning up the “assets” that IMF and ECB are trying to force Greece to privatize?

Guess who is on the hook for the CDS’s.

https://acrossthestreetnet.wordpress.com/2011/12/25/seasons-greedings/

I wouldn’t want to be on the night shift at the German embassy in Athens.

who? There are a lotta numbers at your link but not a single statement that “Bank [insert TBTF bank name here] sold [insert Billion dollar figure here] worth of CDS on Greek bonds to the market.”

The link does not ever mention a dollar amount for CDS on Greek bonds. We need a better link.

No names but here is an explanation

Keep in mind Salmon puts all the fault on the Greeks.

I’ve also read -though haven’t tracked back down- that the greek bonds get traded for german bonds marked up 500% and it is those that get the ‘haircut’ of 70 %.

Why isn’t there a greek politician saying “If bankruptcy worked for argentina, why can’t we do the same thing? Screw the euro.”

The problem the Greeks have is that no matter which party or coalition of parties gains power is that whether or not they accept draconian austerity, the one thing they must do is establish and enforce a genuine system of tax collection. Tax evasion (not avoidance, evasion) is a way of life at virtually all levels of Greek society.

Here are some examples:

- Greeks are supposed to pay higher property taxes if they have a pool. A Greek paper used aerial photos of greater Athens to identify thousands upon thousands of pools. Something like 67 of them were actually noted on the property tax rolls.

- An analysis of tax records many individuals who operated businesses in prime areas of Athens showed that they were claiming gross incomes for the year that were actually less than what rents for their business space in those buildings cost.

Combine tax evasion as a national pastime with absurd “retire at 50″ policies and Voila! bankruptcy. This is what Goldman Sux helped the Greeks cover up so that they could get admitted into the Eurozone in the first place.

say the same about the united states

nina olson is the national taxpayer advocate at the irs and she said

Olson’s report came just days after the IRS estimated that people and companies underpaid their taxes by a huge $385 billion last year after audits and other enforcement efforts, compared with around $2.3 trillion that the agency collected.

Olson noted that these tax collections are what make government programs possible and that the underpayment comes as lawmakers hunt for ways to pare federal deficits exceeding $1 trillion yearly.

so about 1/3rd of us deficit is us taxpayers cheating

Oh, no doubt. But our evasion is more widely tilted toward two areas of the economy: the better off, and those who can skim or under-report from cash businesses. Our corporate tax rate is a joke (because very few, if any, corps pay more than a fraction of the nominal rate), yet the Betrayer-in-Chief wants to lower the rate even more. (Don’t believe for a moment that the proposed elimination of some corp tax loopholes will actually happen.)

And we’re still on the opposite end of the retirement schematic from the Greeks. We’ve got some public employees retiring at 50 or 55, and some folks taking reduced “early retirement” in corp downsizing, but as a society as a whole, we’re still looking at most people working until somewhere between 62 and 67.

no comment

The problem the Greeks have is that no matter which party or coalition of parties gains power is that whether or not they accept draconian austerity, the one thing they must do is establish and enforce a genuine system of tax collection. Tax evasion (not avoidance, evasion) is a way of life at virtually all levels of Greek society.

We are all Greeks now. Or are the Greeks now Americans ?

We wonders…yes we wonders.

wikipedia

“Nazis came to power in the midst of the Great Depression. When the Nazis came to power the most pressing issue was an unemployment rate of close to 30%.[18] Before World War II, Hitler appointed Hjalmar Schacht, a former member of the German Democratic Party, as President of the Reichsbank in 1933 and Minister of Economics in 1934.

At first, Schacht continued the economic policies introduced by the government of Kurt von Schleicher in 1932 to combat the effects of the Great Depression.

These policies were mostly Keynesian, relying on large public works programs supported by deficit spending — such as the construction of the Autobahn network — to stimulate the economy and reduce unemployment. There was major reduction in unemployment over the following years, while price controls prevented the recurrence of inflation.

The economic policies of the Third Reich were in the beginning the brainchildren of Schacht, who assumed office as president of the central bank under Hitler in 1933, and became finance minister in the following year.

Schacht was one of the few finance ministers to take advantage of the freedom provided by the end of the gold standard to keep interest rates low and government budget deficits high, with massive public works funded by large budget deficits.[18]

The consequence was an extremely rapid decline in unemployment—the most rapid decline in unemployment in any country during the Great Depression.[

18] Eventually this Keynesian economic policy was supplemented by the boost to demand provided by rearmament and swelling military spending.”

Greece could become a dictatorship.

OY

“5 US firms represent more than 70% of Global CDS market.”

Sorry Fractal. My only point is that Wall Street insures the bulk of sovereign debt everywhere. And of course the American taxpayer is the ultimate back stop.

Also the number is fairly impressive.
Global CDS total – 32,409 billions $US.

It was reported several months ago that the Greek government had miraculously found enough money to enter into a deal with the US to buy a hundred or so tanks, as well as a frigate, maybe two, from the French.

This caused a spat between the French and Germans, not because the thrifty Germans were aghast that Greece would spend money like this, but because the Germans accused the French of cutting them out of their own frigate-building business.

This isn’t the end of it I’m sure.

Well, Greece has elections coming up soon, but from what I’ve read their choices aren’t any more “choice” than ours.

And all this pain is from Govt promising more than it can deliver.
The Greeks aren’t planning on instituting real reform, they’re just lying to get a cash fix. If the the German people go further into hock for a lost cause, they get what they deserve.

this youtube from last night in greece at the square

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpaFSkyq5E0

the man switches often from greek to english but shows some tear gassing and he says that the people protest for the government to resign

Since the problem of Greek indebtedness is only exacerbated by austerity planning, there will have to be another renegotiation after this one. By then the deserters from existing parties will have formed a party of their own.

“…the Greek Parliament has a late-night vote on new austerity measures…”

Coming soon to a nation near you.

Keep the pitchforks and torches handy!

Some times a fig leaf of democracy just isn’t enough for the people.

This may be one of those times.

All of these Ivy League Banksters don’t seem to recall European History 102: from the French Revolution to the Present; did they lie, cheat, and steal their grades too?!?

I wouldn’t want to be a banker in Athens.

The “Ivy League” should be know as the “Poison Ivy League.”

If Greece is similar to the U.S. in that 1% controls the political and economic system it’s already a dictatorship. In the U.S. it’s a smiley face fascism unless the people wake up to the scam and then watch that smile turn into a snarl.

I’ll second that;)

Amerika will see this in 2013 no matter who wins. This is dead uncle milton freidmans plan to kill off Main Street on the planet coming home. If you look around you might find who created the Euro, think a $$$$$ man from ronnie-ray-gunne, this was set up to fail.
Thanks David

Well done summary. Just forwarded it on. Thnx.

The “I don’t have a pool declared on my real estate tax bill” problem was in one well off Greek neighborhood – where 16,000 pools were not on the books with less than a hundred on the tax books – with the interviewed residents saying they pay the official tax collector the traditional 1/3rd system, so leave them alone (1/3rd of the owed tax is paid to gov, 1/3rd is the bribe to those at the tax office, and they keep 1/3rd, all under the keep the gov poor and the citizen rich concept of tax paying).

The above is a Greek invention, but the hide the cash transaction “black market” has been about 40% of the Italian economy since the war – at least it was still that way the last time I looked.

With 20 conservative governments out of 27, the rich need not pay taxes idea is EU standard – indeed Germany is demanding “reform of tax system to a broader tax base” (like our recent FDL book salon guest/Obama adviser) that effectively lowers the tax on the rich even more.

And Today the US talking heads were saying the left – defined as those pushing loudly for more equality (everyone is in favor of more fairness – just not loud about it) via the tax system – are a tiny portion of the votes that Obama can ignore (on NBC’s MTP).

Insights on the Greek/EU crisis, though from a narrow “democratic capitalism” perspective.

” . . . national governments have politics but no policy, since important decisions are made by the EU; the EU has policy but no politics, since decisions are not made by elected representatives.”

. . .

“Everyone knew that a unified monetary policy (the interest rates set by the European Central Bank) without a unified fiscal policy (the ability of some recognized central authority to spend more money to revive the economy) could not endure. The hope was that a debt crisis, when it came, would by necessity produce a unified fiscal policy.

“At the moment Greek voters can change the parties who rule them, but cannot change fiscal policies. These are decided in Berlin. Thus we have the emergence of pantomime republics.”

the interviewed residents saying they pay the official tax collector the traditional 1/3rd system, so leave them alone (1/3rd of the owed tax is paid to gov, 1/3rd is the bribe to those at the tax office, and they keep 1/3rd, all under the keep the gov poor and the citizen rich concept of tax paying).

I wonder it that’s cheaper than bribing a congress critter.

And our own shadow economy IE black market, is said to be in the trillions.

Let’s certainly hope so.

Thank you for the kindness -

shadow economy -

the mind is not sharp tonight.

I need some of that new skin cancer drug for mice that removes Alzheimer’s plaque.

It was lopsided, too. 199 to 74, plus 27 not voting.

So preplanning for when it all falls apart. . . I wonder how many of the 199 have escape hatches set up, quite literally. A fast boat, money stashed outside the country, etc.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204795304577218751910373864.html

Why should the German people pay anything? They didn’t lend the money to the Greeks, the German banks did.

If the German banks try to stick it to the German taxpayer, here’s hoping–a vain hope most likely–that the Germans respond far more effectively than American citizens did.

Nobody cares about laws,voting or other systemic trappings .With the exception of Germany and several other nations,the entire global political system will either collapse or the G-20 bankster cabal and its political mascots will be dead .People will not sacrifice their familial and national interests to further bloat the royalist coffers of these organized thugs and their austerity pretext to steal sovereign assets and privatize public monopolies .

The further political history of Athens up to the time of Solon is only imperfectly known. The office of basileus fell into disuse; the positions at the head of the state were occupied by archons elected from the nobility. The power of the nobility continuously increased, until about the year 600 B.C. it became insupportable. And the principal means for suppressing the common liberty were – money and usury. The nobility had their chief seat in and around Athens, whose maritime trade, with occasional piracy still thrown in, enriched them and concentrated in their hands the wealth existing in the form of money. From here the growing money economy penetrated like corrosive acid into the old traditional life of the rural communities founded on natural economy. The gentile constitution is absolutely irreconcilable with money economy; the ruin of the Attic small farmers coincided with the loosening of the old gentile bonds which embraced and protected them. The debtor’s bond and the lien on property (for already the Athenians had invented the mortgage also) respected neither gens nor phratry, while the old gentile constitution, for its part, knew neither money nor advances of money nor debts in money. Hence the money rule of the aristocracy now in full flood of expansion also created a new customary law to secure the creditor against the debtor and to sanction the exploitation of the small peasant by the possessor of money. All the fields of Attica were thick with mortgage columns bearing inscriptions stating that the land on which they stood was mortgaged to such and such for so and so much. The fields not so marked had for the most part already been sold on account of unpaid mortgages or interest, and had passed into the ownership of the noble usurer; the peasant could count himself lucky if he was allowed to remain on the land as a tenant and live on one-sixth of the produce of his labor, while he paid five-sixths to his new master as rent. And that was not all. If the sale of the land did not cover the debt, or if the debt had been contracted without any security, the debtor, in order to meet his creditor’s claims, had to sell his children into slavery abroad. Children sold by their father – such was the first fruit of father-right and monogamy! And if the blood-sucker was still not satisfied, he could sell the debtor himself as a slave. Thus the pleasant dawn of civilization began for the Athenian people.

There was a WSJ article last summer about suburban Athens’ pools. Money that should have gone to the gov’t in taxes went instead to pool contractors. No doubt the pools are merely symptomatic of larger social norms — every costly activity is conducted on the sly or underground. Many thousands of pools also suggest the cheating extends from the wealthy and far into the middle class.

There was also a piece about healthcare, which is guaranteed by the Greek Constitution. But patients can’t get an appointment without paying a kickback.

A doctor buys a cheap hovel in a poor neighborhood as a “residence” of record and for tax purposes, dooesn’t even connect utilities, then lives with relatives/friends in an upscale neighborhood, and hides kickback money under the floorboards. When the money is ripe enough, he’s off to Central America with the cash, a trip a year or so. A few more excursions and he’ll retire comfily overseas in his late 30′s.

One can only imagine the level of disrepect a substantial segment in Greece might have for their own country and fellow citizens. How would a rational tax collection system be even set up in that environment let alone enforced? I guess the question would be whether or not the country is too far past a tipping point.

One can only imagine the level of disrepect a substantial segment in Greece might have for their own country and fellow citizens. How would a rational tax collection system be even set up in that environment let alone enforced? I guess the question would be whether or not the country is too far past a tipping point.

Huuummm….kind of sounds like some North American country, don’t it.

The reunification of Germany now looks like an enormous mistake.

I don’t see anything but darkness from here on out.

That, too!

Reagan sure liked it. But then everything that Reagan liked turned out to be a major mistake.

sadlyyes,
Where you been?
Haven’t seen a comment from you for ages.
Interesting history, thanks for the education.

Greece, the evening of February 12.

From what I can tell from the video, the police are showing remarkable restraint.

PM Cameron’s policies backfired.

Some more as to why debt bubbles should not be
followed by austerity, which in this case is simply
people who created the mortgage bubble blaming everyone
in sight and openly making you pay for its furtherance.

fur.ly/755/dontshaft

And part of the German ransom demands was that both major Greek parties bind themselves to continuing the Austerity programs, regardless of the upcoming election result.

Did the demand that the Greek funds be paid directly into German bankster accounts pass, too?

As I understand it, the largest recipients of the bribes are the tax collectors (“pay 1/3 of what you owe, bribe the tax agent with 1/3, keep 1/3 for yourself” being the alleged formula). Seems to me that a system of dedicated employees would go a long ways towards solving the problem.

And I think the tax-evasion problem is something of red herring here; it’s the WEALTHY who owe and are evading the taxes, not the Greek poor. “Kill the poor” austerity measures like eliminating government jobs and lowering the minimum wage won’t probably even make up for the lost tax receipts, much less solve the evasion problem.

The just solution is to return to sovereign currency and default so the capital isn’t “legally” bled out of the country, and incentivize integrity in the tax-collection ranks by making them more-lucrative jobs, and jailing tax collectors for receiving bribes/tax cheats for tax evasion, targeting some high-profile cases. (An amnesty period to pay unpaid taxes would increase receipts somewhat, and that could be followed by placing a bounty on tax evaders…help us catch your neighbor evading $100,000 worth of taxes and get $10,000 for yourself. That said, the largest tax cheats are probably the corporations, there as here. The swimming pools are a drop in the bucket to the corporate avoidance, I have no doubt.)

Overthrowing the government and putting all the bankers and politicians and corporate scum to work picking olives would also help, but small steps first, I suppose.

just over whelmed by 10 years of atrocities.cant see the rainbow in these dark times.i help all the local elderly here i can,and keep rescuing the darling animals….for them i dont tire…good to see you here!