An interest in Greece??

I only read less than half of it...

Not even in Greece you cannot find such "reporters".
Almost every sentence was full of "inaccuracies".

From the few lines that I have read I should make some corrections.
Yes few people validate their tickets because the vast majority has montly or yearly passes as they cost much less than buying the 1.40 single journey ticket. There are many ticket checks on the quais by security employees and the fine is 60 (or 50?) times the ticket.

A photo from one of the most elite marinas in Athens is certainly not representative (or am I wrong?).

The pensions of the hairdressers are not state-payed. It is their own (and mine) pension system called TEVE and only women with young (<18 yo) children can have a fraction of their pension at 50.

Very few Greeks declare an income of more than 100.000 simply because income from shares in a company has already been taxed and does not count as personal and thus taxable (maybe taxing twice the same income is common and we should consider it as well).

Ship-owners are very lightly taxed because they would very easily take their boats off the Greek flag and their offices away from Greece which would only result in much less indirect income for the Greeks and the Country (there are restrictions for the crew nationality in Greek-flagged vessels that force them to use a fair percentage of Greek sailors).

I would like to have some honest comments on a semi-personal issue. My wife (with 25 years of experience), as well as other 250.000 teachers of primary and secondary education, was getting 19.000 euros (about 16.700 pounds) yearly. Do you think that after the 12% cut she got last year she still gets paid generously and should forget all the luxury she was used to?

Maybe the few hundred or thousand railway epmloyees (most of whom are engineers) are getting more than they should, and that is a scandal. But the problem is not the very few million euros that they get overpaid. We are talking of hundreds of billions.

Yes there is tax-evasion. Yes there is corruption. And yes they both are in a bigger extent than in other European countries. But could you please take a look in our military expenses? A small country has to maintain an army big enough to defend Europe's Eastern borders. Couldn't EU, with armies like Britain's and France's (both being nuclear powers) or even Germany's, guarantee EU's borders with a common army in which every country would contribute according to it's capacity? Of course it could. But then who would buy all these planes, tanks and other systems?

And if you, British, forget that Greece was your first ally in the war you declared against the Nazis, and the first country to win a victory against the Axis (Italy), why shouldn't the Germans forget to pay not only war compensation (I don't know the right word) but not even the compulsory loan that they took from Greece after occupation. There are serious analysts that raise the sum to 570 billion of (today's) Euros. On second (and most probably silly) thought, if this is only revenge against the resisting countries (first Yugoslavia and then Greece) maybe you should prepare for war.

The most alarming issue is that Greece (with a not-very-bright American) and apparently the rest of the EU lacks leadership.

I got tired (and you too I assume)...
 
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Hear Hear , Glyka

The Mail is not a paper who,s opinion you should take too seriously , its whats known as a "rag " and not one whom you should seek accurate balanced reporting from.

Like many newspapers ,it sells on headlines , not content .
I am glad that the Greek government had the courage to unite at this delicate time and am certain recovery is in sight for the future .
 
True, the Daily Wail is not is not renowned for objectivity, and tends to exaggerate facts out of all proportion. I did recognise a few truths in the article, eg tax evasion being a national sport, too many under-employed public sector employees... but same applies to Belgistan.
My worm's eye view of things is that it's no use whatsoever to increase tax rates without implementing the means to ensure compliance with the law. VAT up from 19% to 21% to 23%? If nobody paid at 19%, they're surely not going to pay 23%. A former colleague (EU VAT advisor) confirmed that efficiency of Greek VAT administration is measured by quantity of rubber stamps applied to reams of paper - procedural, but not effective compliance.

As for taxes on swimming pools/boats etc, fine, but you need people to enforce the law!
All my sympathies go to the "outsiders" who are working their socks off to make ends meet, whilst the "insiders" continue to get richer, and contribute little to the economy
 
Glyka said:
I only read less than half of it...

But could you please take a look in our military expenses? A small country has to maintain an army big enough to defend Europe's Eastern borders. Couldn't EU, with armies like Britain's and France's (both being nuclear powers) or even Germany's, guarantee EU's borders with a common army in which every country would contribute according to it's capacity? Of course it could. But then who would buy all these planes, tanks and other systems?

..
Click to expand...

Which eastern border of the EU? Greece has Turkey on it's eastern flank, a fellow NATO member, so no threat there. The remaining nation states bordering Greece have no military capability worth considering if you added them all up together (those that aren't already members of both the EU and NATO) and therefore pose no threat to either the EU as a whole or Greece in particular. Could you please explain what threat it is that you're suggesting you're defending the rest of against?
 
duncan99210 said:
Which eastern border of the EU? Greece has Turkey on it's eastern flank, a fellow NATO member, so no threat there. The remaining nation states bordering Greece have no military capability worth considering if you added them all up together (those that aren't already members of both the EU and NATO) and therefore pose no threat to either the EU as a whole or Greece in particular. Could you please explain what threat it is that you're suggesting you're defending the rest of against?
Click to expand...

Maybe not against others but if I am not mistaken Turkey was a "fellow" NATO menber in 1996 too (when they raised the Turkish flag on a islet that even their maps marked as Greek and we escaped war by our PM's cowardness). This "fellow" has territorial claims over Greece to which they refer cunningly as "disputes over the Aegean". Something like the Falklands dispute. You then saw what you need the army for. And the Greek islands are a bit closer to the mainland.

This "fellow" has declared (by constitutional law) that it will treat our lawful right to extend Greek waters to 12 miles as Casus Beli.

Who do you think this Kurds-bombing, Armenian-massacring fellow NATO member is? Switzerland?
 
duncan99210 said:
Which eastern border of the EU? Greece has Turkey on it's eastern flank, a fellow NATO member, so no threat there. The remaining nation states bordering Greece have no military capability worth considering if you added them all up together (those that aren't already members of both the EU and NATO) and therefore pose no threat to either the EU as a whole or Greece in particular. Could you please explain what threat it is that you're suggesting you're defending the rest of against?
Click to expand...

By the same measure how come the Uk spends what it does on defense?
 
nimbusgb said:
By the same measure how come the Uk spends what it does on defense?
Click to expand...

The UK is an (ex?) imperialistic country with strategic and financial interests abroad and only spends 2,4% of its GDP whereas Greece spends 4,3% in order to have just enough (?) force to defend against its "fellow" NATO member. Simple arithmetic shows that if we had Netherlands' 1,6% or Germany's 1,5% for the last 65 years we would have no problem whatsoever. In fact we would be far better than most EU countries.
 
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Such articles are in my opinion unworthy of comments are not even suit for use in the heads in emergencies...I should add, to be careful what you read, but as Nicholson (the actor) once said in a movie, oppinions are like @ssholes everybody has one.Have a nice weekend and don't believe everything you read.
 
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