General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA thread of support for the Greek 99%
The world's 99% are being crushed by the economic policies of the bankers, and their paid political help on the Right and the "Sensible Adult" Left.
Ending this disastrous state of affairs will not be easy, but the Greek people are giving it a shot. Let's hope, for the sake of all who suffer so the rich can make a few more bucks, that they make some progress.
They are trying.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)libtodeath
(2,888 posts)I hope they crush the banksters that have stolen the worlds wealth.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)peacebird
(14,195 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)....what?
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)But let's not go there.
Mosby
(16,263 posts)30 billion per year of lost revenue.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)OnlinePoker
(5,719 posts)Greece's annual deficit is 22 Billion Euros. If everybody paid their taxes, the government wouldn't have to keep going hat in hand to the rest of the world looking for money to keep them afloat and their crisis would be manageable.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Other than debt repayment, and that onerous terms on the 99%, like wage reduction, were imposed on Greece by agreement with previous governments. The current government wants to renegotiate those terms. Did those terms include stopping tax evasion?
My understanding is that most of the cheating is done by the well off, as it is in America, and I'd imagine that the new government will do what it reasonably can.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)erronis
(15,185 posts)We wouldn't have our incredible inbalance in the haves and havenots.
We all know that most high-level income (and I include graft, bribes, non-reported, etc.) is not declared on any tax form.
The lower-income peasants (and yes, that includes most of us that rely on wages) have been coerced into having to pay our "dues" up front. UncleS gets his first.
The poor top .1% have to hire fancy accountants to make sure that they don't pay like the riff-raff. It's OK, spend a few $10,000 to hide your $1,000,000s - cost of doing business (ala RMoney).
hack89
(39,171 posts)Greece, it seems, has struggled with the first rule of a healthy tax system: enforce the law. People are more likely to be honest if they feel theres a reasonable chance that dishonesty will be detected and punished. But Greek tax officials were notoriously easy to bribe with a fakelaki (small envelope) of cash. There was little political pressure for tougher enforcement. On the contrary: a recent study showed that enforcement of the tax laws loosened in the months leading up to elections, because incumbents didnt want to annoy voters and contributors. Even when the system did track down evaders, it was next to impossible to get them to pay up, because the tax courts typically took seven to ten years to resolve a case. As of last February, they had a backlog of three hundred thousand cases.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/07/11/dodger-mania#ixzz1uPEt42My
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)and start arresting their crooked politicians and bankers. Maybe the Greek people will have jobs when they retrieve what has been stolen from them, THEN they can pay their taxes.
daschess1987
(192 posts)Mosby
(16,263 posts)libodem
(19,288 posts)zeemike
(18,998 posts)At least we can hope.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)demonstrations every day, and even Protest Dog, wonder where he is now.
Protest Dog confronting the police
He knew which side he was on
zeemike
(18,998 posts)But dogs are always on the side of people.
azmom
(5,208 posts)ReRe
(10,597 posts)I loved "Protest Dog."
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)It is especially encouraging in such cases where those that would hoard all the wealth as the people starve (human parasites) are thwarted by a population without need of bloodshed. The french revolution was necessary against such parasites in the past, peaceful revolutions however are far superior to those such as myself that love peace and hate bloodshed, even when the blood shed is that of the parasites.
It appears as if they may be successful in this peaceful revolution, I can think of nothing I would support more.
yuiyoshida
(41,818 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Tempting... but not yet.
yuiyoshida
(41,818 posts)Denis 11
(280 posts)Response to MannyGoldstein (Original post)
Denis 11 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)elleng
(130,757 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Good to see you back, TWM harshes the DU mellow a bit, you're almost too good at it.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)[center]
[/center][font size="1"]From Wikipedia Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eugène_Delacroix_-_La_liberté_guidant_le_peuple.jpg)
(Public Domain)
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MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Sad that it so often comes down to armed conflict.
nc4bo
(17,651 posts)wildbilln864
(13,382 posts)Phlem
(6,323 posts)Nice call out Manny.
tomg
(2,574 posts)Ramses
(721 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Maybe we should try the same idea here some day.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)rurallib
(62,387 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)work for the common good. And yes I know they think working for the corporations is good. I do not. There is hardly any nation that does not trace its origin back to an interest in the needs of the people. And yes, I know that the people seldom get what they are looking for.
The EU does not seem to care much for the needs of the people in its member countries. Instead it is representing only the banksters and corporations.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)A friend of my daughter, who is a filmmaker, was in Cairo in the aftermath of the Arab Spring with his best friend who is Egyptian and lives there and experienced it. Then he went back to Athens where he grew up and currently lives. He's making a fictional movie based on the real events that he and his friend experienced in both cities. I love this young man like a son and the description he once wrote of him being tear gassed was heart breaking.
In order to secure the footage seen in the trailer of his yet unfinished film, he's been beat up by the police and members of Golden Dawn, tear gassed, and threatened with imminent death (and escaping such by his wits). He is remarkable person.
I sincerely hope he gets to finish the movie.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)The footage is great - although (everyone's a critic) the story's not clear from that trailer. Or is it a trailer?
I wish him great success, we need more powerful images of revolution to spur us on!
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)Too many trailers spill the entire plot of the movie.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)The world needs to see, starting with Portuguese, Italy, Spain
azmom
(5,208 posts)Of the Egyptian revolution and had the same feel as this. People being gassed, shot at and hundreds being arrested.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Cosmic Kitten
(3,498 posts)Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)99% is showing up and sticking to what you said you would do
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)(no minor detail, eh?)
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)The fascist contingent, Golden Dawn, had, at one point, near as much chance to carry the vote. But the people rejected fascism and are willing to give the left a chance.
And I have little doubt that the CIA and the NSA and GBHQ are working over time to fuck over the new Greek government.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)I can't think of another model in the crosshairs of NSA CIA and the Banksters than that choice. I want to learn more about this.
azmom
(5,208 posts)Honesty. Italy had a seizure when Yanis dared to say that they were broke too and that if Greece fell it would be next in line. Yanis told them it was all a house of cards.
Thespian2
(2,741 posts)Some how this disaster in the world must be turned around. I truly hope the Greek people are completely successful in their important attempt at change.
spanone
(135,795 posts)Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)demigoddess
(6,640 posts)hedgehog
(36,286 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)KG
(28,751 posts)I just haven't figured it out yet...
LeftishBrit
(41,203 posts)mountain grammy
(26,598 posts)I have hope with this election.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)marmar
(77,056 posts)[font size="5"]Εξουσία στο Λαό[/font]
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)As I wrote on another thread, Greece needs to seriously deal with its military spending.
This is from a recent LA Times . .
"Yet despite the [military] cuts, Greece continues to spend the largest per capita amount for defense of any nation in the European Union. According to the independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Greece's military spending in 2011 equaled 2.1% of its gross domestic product, compared with the EU average of less than 1.6%.
If successive governments in Athens had spent less than 1.6% over the last 20 years, economists say, Greece could have saved a total of 52% of its GDP, sparing Greeks from international bailouts and grueling austerity."
Of course, it's the same in the US, where we too are being bankrupted by obscene military spending, which, using non-phony accounting is close to an unustainable $ 1.2 trillion per year.
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randome
(34,845 posts)And demanding a bigger bailout from the EU. And doing nothing about the insane level of tax cheating in Greece.
This doesn't seem like it's going to end well.
Get your hats out now.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]
LiberalLovinLug
(14,165 posts)Austerity, another term for Trickle Down imposed @ 100x speed. Stripping the middle and poor classes and lavishing the 1% with extra income they don't need. Then there's a snowball effect where the 1% get even more influential and demand even more breaks while their MSM poodles scream about the greedy population and how much they need to give up their "entitlements" for the nation to survive.
Its happening everywhere. Its just easier to see in an accelerated version like in Greece. Disgusting.
lark
(23,065 posts)Prove the austerity, all taxes/fees paid by the poor not the rich, crowd wrong wrong wrong.
TheKentuckian
(25,020 posts)Now it is about finding a way to climb out of the whole that won't dig it deeper.
azmom
(5,208 posts)They want to keep lending Greece money in order to keep up the charade.
azmom
(5,208 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)That's why they ACT like they don't and focus on secret corporate laws to make their own illicit behavior legal.
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)May you once again teach the world what Democracy is. The bankers are not your countrymen, but the equivalent of Xerxes and is amry of so called "immortals."
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)institute capital controls, and relaunch the drachma. I would also sack a number of generals who were too close to the old regime, just in case.
The Greeks elected the left to do what needs to be done, not to keep begging from the Germans.
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)We could take some lessons and be less obedient/oblivious sheep like.