Greeks vote to reject incumbants, austerity

[GlennB]

Oh, quite the contrary, the report was very much about those Goldman Sachs tricks and how they exploited legal loopholes. And also some not so legal loopholes. That was then. I am fairly sure most people here are already aware of the general mess that resulted in Greece being accepted to the Euro zone.
I merely replied to the topic of the Greek financial administration not being on top of the time wrt to tax collecting (and auditing) procedures.

I don't know how the ministry works internally, but annual tax returns can only be submitted through an internet portal so I presume they're processed electronically on receipt. If you can't do it yourself then you pay €50 or so to a local accountant to do the job, which drives me nuts as the office gets clogged with elderly Greeks using it for a gossip-fest.

As for small retailers using the lack of cards for tax avoidance purposes, well, I seriously doubt it. They all have electronic tills and face severe penalties if they fail to issue a receipt. If all you bought was an 80c loaf of bread they will still insist on giving you the receipt.

 

[ddt]

Until very recently a clear majority were still paying with cash in supermarkets etc. Now it's maybe 50:50, depending on where you are.

And how ubiquitous is it that you can pay with plastic? Every kebab joint? Every parking meter? I have no idea about the actual amount of debit card payments vs. cash in the Netherlands, but nearly everywhere it's possible to use a debit card.

Despite being financially sophisticated in many ways, Mrs Don prefers to do her budgeting with cash. We take out a certain amount each week and budget our "normal" spending including meals out and pub visits using that cash. If the money for the week is low then we won't go out and will have something to eat from the freezer or store cupboard instead of buying fresh ingredients.

That strategy absolutely does make sense, especially when you're on a tight budget by necessity. It's very simple to see how much bills there are still in your wallet.

And then there are also many elderly who cannot get used to having a PIN code around at all, and still go up to the cash register inside the bank branch to withdraw their money.

 

[aleCcowaN]

A bit dated now, but here's an enjoyable sketch from a Dutch satirical program, from Feb 21st. It has English subtitles:

I don't understand the language but I enjoyed the different accents.

And "Varoufakis" dancing the Zorba way in the back made me remember the scene when everybody is waiting for the old woman to die so they can share out her belongings.

 

[Childlike Empress]

And how ubiquitous is it that you can pay with plastic? Every kebab joint? Every parking meter? I have no idea about the actual amount of debit card payments vs. cash in the Netherlands, but nearly everywhere it's possible to use a debit card.

I almost always pay with cash so I don't even know... can't remember seeing anybody at a Kebab joint or at a corner kiosk pay with plastic, though. As to be expected, the larger the sums, the more common it is (i.e. gas station).

I know that the Dutch have been kind of European pioneer in plastic paying.

 

[GlennB]

Anyway, reading about the run-up to today's meetings it's suggested Greece isn't about to make any new proposals today, but then the FinMin meeting precedes the leaders' meeting.

Much chaos and conflicting, almost random, statements from many parties.

 

[Childlike Empress]

I don't understand the language but I enjoyed the different accents.

And "Varoufakis" dancing the Zorba way in the back made me remember the scene when everybody is waiting for the old woman to die so they can share out her belongings.

Yeah, pretty funny. The subtitles don't load for me as well. To force a video to start with subtitles, add to the ID "&cc_load_policy=1" and if you want to force the language if there's more than one, add "&hl=el&cc_lang_pref=el" (with el being Greek) before that. Here, with en:

 

[aleCcowaN]

The problem is not the abundance or lack of d/c, c/c and POS points, but the government doing nothing about it.

I don't see where the problem is. We did it here and we did it quick 14 years ago, with the technology available then, both locally and internationally. And we continued to do it all along the way: now you can pay goods with your personal magnetic card designed to pay public transportation; you can go to a number of shops and have your cash card recharged using your debit card. Billing by mail is widely available, and apps and services that make your mobile phone into a terminal in the POSnet are not expensive.

It's as simple as everybody realizing -dentists included- that either you lose 2 to 6% of a sale or service for banking costs or you don't sale anything nor provide any service. It's very common to give your bank key and have the money transferred into your account. You even can use services that allow to print a ticket and be paid all around the country and the collecting service makes it available to you on a periodic basis. A lot of such services are available as a side business in laundrymats, newstands or ice-cream parlours.

Cash transactions are still very common here for evasion purposes. And the government is not much worried about it because it prints the bank bills people need to perform their black transactions and keep their black money so the government has the opportunity to spend it the first time.

Let's face it: Greeks will increasingly realize that euro bank bills and coins are "money abroad" and they'll increasingly keep it in little "abroad embassies" like sealed plastic bags under flagstones in their kitchens.

The sooner they realize euro is gone and replace it with the ghost-euro, the quicker they'll start to surmount this crisis. They have just 6 to 8 weeks to turn the rudder around, be proactive and do what is needed. Failing to do so will throw the country into total chaos and the world won't follow it in an acute international crisis everybody is confident to avert, but as a slow motion crisis they can't even imagine how deep and branched it can possibly come to be.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Yeah, pretty funny. The subtitles don't load for me as well. To force a video to start with subtitles, add to the ID "&cc_load_policy=1" and if you want to force the language if there's more than one, add "&hl=el&cc_lang_pref=el" (with el being Greek) before that. Here, with en:

Thank you very much, but I had read the subtitles in English. I meant it like subtitles always lose in the way part of the meaning and most of the charm, but I managed to grasp some of it through the musicality of the accents, especially "Merkel's".

 

[aleCcowaN]

Much chaos and conflicting, almost random, statements from many parties.

The terms "statesman" and "statesperson" seem to have been crossed out in the modern dictionary of European politics...

 

[caveman1917]

Not a lot of details here, and it's still essentially second-hand, though I'd trust it a lot more than Chomsky.

I'd still trust Chomsky a lot more than I'd trust you though. Including for the following reasons

First, what's illegal capital flight versus legal capital flight? Don't know.

It is illegal if it has been declared as illegal, otherwise it is legal. For instance, if capital controls are implemented then capital flight contradicting those controls is illegal while capital flight that doesn't is legal. This does not seem very hard.

Second, even if correct, a death penalty was only possible, there's no indication that anyone was ever sentenced to death (or even threatened with it) for the crime.

Chomsky explicitly claims that nobody was sentenced to death for it. It's only a single step of logic to get there. Chomsky says there is no capital flight because of the death penalty for it. If there is none, then nobody could've been sentenced to death for it. Also, if the law contains a death penalty for something then that would be considered a threat against doing that something.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Chomsky may have mixed up South Korea with Singapore. Chomsky talking about economics is worse than Dyson talking about global warming. Not that they are dead wrong but ,why don't they stick to the fields they are indeed brilliant? Sometimes is like somewhat hearing Stephen Hawking kinda talking about today's segregation in the USA. Not something he'd do, why would them?

 

[aleCcowaN]

Greece has only 12 days left to come with laws that set her course away from the Eurozone without letting her out of the European Union, from electronic banking, IOUs printing and bank shielding to offering temporary internal tariffs with the Eurozone in order to protect them from a future ""avalanche"" of Greek products and to repay part of what is owed from ELA and the rest of the funds.

There's no Grexident, just Eurofoolery.

 

[Ziggurat]

I'd still trust Chomsky a lot more than I'd trust you though. Including for the following reasons

I'm not asking you to trust me.

It is illegal if it has been declared as illegal, otherwise it is legal.

That's a pointless tautology which tells us nothing of use.

For instance, if capital controls are implemented then capital flight contradicting those controls is illegal while capital flight that doesn't is legal. This does not seem very hard.

But without knowing what those controls are (and the source gives no indication), then we don't know what's illegal and what isn't, do we? This does not seem very hard.

Chomsky explicitly claims that nobody was sentenced to death for it. It's only a single step of logic to get there. Chomsky says there is no capital flight because of the death penalty for it.

Except that this claim isn't supported by any reliable evidence.

 

[caveman1917]

But without knowing what those controls are (and the source gives no indication), then we don't know what's illegal and what isn't, do we? This does not seem very hard.

No it isn't, but you seem to completely miss the point. The controls could change over time and hence not be fixed. For instance when the economy is doing good then there could be next to no controls, but when it's not doing good there could be controls implemented. The specification of the actual controls need not be tied to the specification of criminalizing the circumvention of whatever controls are in place at the time.

Except that this claim isn't supported by any reliable evidence.

Which is a different question from the way you changed the claim to something that contradicts the actual claim - evidenced or otherwise.

 

[Ziggurat]

No it isn't, but you seem to completely miss the point. The controls could change over time and hence not be fixed.

That doesn't undermine my point at all. Without knowing what those controls are, there's no way we can evaluate what they mean. The fact that the controls may change over time just reinforces the impossibility of analysis in the absence of that information, which must include how the controls have changed.

 

[caveman1917]

The fact that the controls may change over time just reinforces the impossibility of analysis in the absence of that information, which must include how the controls have changed.

A country could, for instance, introduce the death penalty for not paying your taxes. You can analyze this without needing to know the actual tax rate, which may change from time to time.

 

[aleCcowaN]

The Paradox of Thrift at work - a practical case- :

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/jul/07/greek-crisis-athens-street-markets-video

Did I tell in my broken mayonnaise and what-were-we-going-to-dine story that at the same moment I had some 1150$ in bank notes hidden in a Cadbury's can inside the conducts of the air heating system in my apartment? I had even some lincolns and washingtons when everybody had only grants and franklins, but I wouldn't even change those little notes into australs to buy food unless we were starving the real way. Why? Because things always can go worse, and that's the feeling you have 24 hours a day -even in your dreams-. My mother had 4,100$ in the bank safe, and her pension had dropped to 8$ a month in July 1989. She wouldn't exchange some of them either.

I'm afraid that sentiment may be a little the generalized feeling throughout Greece at this very moment. The result is the crisis spiralling out of control as what seems to be the personal optimum becomes the collective worst.

 

[GlennB]

An interesting thought I've read elsewhere - the conspicuous absence of new proposals by the new Greek FinMin today means they can't be preemptively vetoed by Schaeuble, thus killing any need for debate among leaders. It will all come down to the leaders' summit later.

Meanwhile France and Italy, at least, seem to be having serious reservations about this headlong plunge into Euro-doom.

 

[jaydeehess]

It's a matter of what you're used to. I almost don't use any cash, anywhere. Not being able to pay a dentist with a debit card is to me

McHrozni

Me too. One local oddity , my accountant does not take debit cards and only Mastercard credit card. Even with the CC though the receptionist still has the manual carbon copy imprinter. No electronic terminal. Its not like its a tiny one man show either. Its MNP one of the largest firms in Canada.
http://www.mnp.ca/en/about

In Canada electronic payments are more common than cash by far.

 

[Oystein]

I don't understand. Does this mean you understood or accepted what I was telling you and you are rewording it? ...

Yep, sort of, but remember where we came from: You had expressed the hope, or expectation, that someone more "expert" would become fimi. I asked what you consider to be an "expert". The qualities of a, let's say, "non-academic" economist ... I am not sure how you determine them; I proposed that a good minister needs not be an expert in the field, but a good manager and communicator. So why did you look forward to an "expert", and how do you detect expertdom? You proposed that, because of your Argentine experienced, I would "have to trust" you that you just know an expert when you see one.
I responded what I really don't have to trust you on that - which you then agreed with.

Confused?
Good!