I realise that, but the only reason Germany and France have continued to reach into their pockets is to keep the Euro going, with Greece in it. Once Greece drops out there will be no reason for them to do that - Greece will not be able to raise the money it needs (not without crippling debt interest) and it will then end up defaulting, not ;least because there is no discipline to reduce the deficit. Once that happens there is a risk other countries with large deficits will end up in the same position, dropping out of the Euro and left to defend for themselves.
The issue is not Greece itself - which is a small economy, but what effect it dropping out has on other countries in a similar position.
I believe the Germans have already accepted Greece may leave the € in fact privately I suspect many wish it would. If it drops out it doesn't mean the end of the Eurozone and in any case it may well be the best thing if others follow suit. The € is and never was a pass to a successful economy, it was always a political objective.
Spain actually has a relatively low level of public debt but has and is running very large deficits while Italy is in the opposite position and neither of them are in as bad a state as Greece.
And all countries in extreme situations vote extreme, nothing personal to Greece. You recently had a military dictatorship, so it's not inconceivable that something like that returns.
The comment about holidays, well people here (in Scotland) come back saying that their holidays were miserable because of the situation and they wouldn't consider going back.
Sorry, but he doesn't have the authority to do any such thing. He can do no more than express a wish to do it at the moment.
Yes, the situation is horrible and will continue to be. It may be better outside the Eurozone.
Sorry, but he doesn't have the authority to do any such thing. He can do no more than express a wish to do it at the moment.
Sure he wont succeed but it's not really what Angela sees as reliable. She soon has her own elections upcoming. some French socialist breathing down her neck and her own coalition partner (that wants Greece out) in turmoil.
She will not be a happy bunny after she tried to get such a big debt reduction for Greece.
Nothing to do with the Greek people for prefering the lies to the truth, hence the continuum of lying and book cooking governments. Nor avoidance of tax, which was a national sport (and no doubt still is).
Typical socialist evaluation - everyone's fault but the people's.
1) There has always been a sizable minority in Greece (and I include myself and the people close to me in this minority) that had NEVER voted for the lying governments. Not only had they never voted for these useless bastards, but they had been frequently demonstrating against them at every opportunity. Since you comment on Greece with such confidence, I assume you know a lot about the country, in which case you surely must know that we have always had a very active protest movement...a protest movement, which I should add, people with views very much like your own have always sneered at.....Maybe now you have started to understand that the people demonstrating had every reason to be doing so.
2) Some people voted for the lying governments for personal gain. I don't know how many these people are, but I absolutely despise them. I know, however, that there are also people who voted for them on good faith....Like many other countries, we essentially have had a two-party system all these years, and it has been hard for any other political force to break into the mainstream, not least because of a completely ridiculous and unfair electoral system. This has meant that despite their lies and their faults, the two major parties were seen by many as the only options, the only forces with the experience required to govern...so people alternated their votes between the two. When one party f*cked up, the other took over in a perpetual cycle which led to very little change. I believe this is not unique to Greece.
3) Tax evasion is a problem in Greece, but: a) the majority of Greeks pay their taxes (they couldn't avoid them even if they wanted to); b) there are reasons behind some of the tax evasion that go beyond individual greed, and I'm a bit fed up of people who have obviously never lived in Greece taking the moral high ground on this issue.
4) There is nothing socialist about first and foremost blaming the people in power, the people whose JOB it was to govern the country. When I f*ck up in my job, I don't try to pass the blame onto somebody else (the person who hired me, for instance)..I take full responsibility for my mistakes. That said, of course some of the electorate are to blame too, especially those who voted in return for favours, but it is a gross exaggeration to blame the Greek people collectively.
And all countries in extreme situations vote extreme, nothing personal to Greece. You recently had a military dictatorship, so it's not inconceivable that something like that returns. Look what happened to Germany in the 1920 and 30's. Extreme Depression and people voting left wing and right wing extremists with the inevitable result of an aggressive nation. And your last election results pretty much fit German results before 1933.
The comment about holidays, well people here (in Scotland) come back saying that their holidays were miserable because of the situation and they wouldn't consider going back.
1) Alexis Tsipras (who I do not rate, by the way) made the perfectly valid point that the bailout deals, which were voted by a parliament that did not have the required popular mandate (something which has been made crystal clear by the elections), are essentially void. This is not an extreme viewpoint, unless you consider democracy to be extreme.
2) Golden Dawn, and to a lesser extent the Communist party, are the only extreme political forces in Greece. Even though SYRIZA has been labelled 'far left' by both the BBC and the Guardian, this couldn't be further from the truth. The majority of SYRIZA members are social democrats, and its voters cover the spectrum of the 'soft', moderate left.
3) I didn't object to your opinions on the holiday conditions in Greece, although having been to Greece recently, I don't see how anyone travelling outside of Athens would have had an experience any different to what tourists have always been having in Greece. I objected to your depiction of Greece as a Socialist State and a low tax heaven. Both these statements are incorrect.
Greeks attacking foreigners? Well, yes, but third-world immigrants rather than tourists. And that happens in all countries.
A devaluation would definitely help the Greek tourist industry.
Oh well that makes it OK them. Maybe lots of tourists of the Nick Griffin persuasion would like to join in for their hols...
Do they really do that? Of course they don't.
And, yes, the numbers of tourists have dropped. German wages have dropped, and they have less disposable income. It would help if the Greeks could devalue and offer cheaper holidays.
I think they might choose Turkey, Spain or Portugal instead.
This week the members of the Greek Nazi party attacked a journalist for criticising them. Among the criticisms - that she was Greek but born in Germany and so should watch her back....
I think they might choose Turkey, Spain or Portugal instead.
This week the members of the Greek Nazi party attacked a journalist for criticising them. Among the criticisms - that she was Greek but born in Germany and so should watch her back....
Golden Dawn are freaks and thugs which had never managed to get over 1% of the vote up until recently. I am stunned that almost half a million people voted for them this time round, and I can only hope that in the main it was a protest vote never to be repeated.
Sure he wont succeed but it's not really what Angela sees as reliable. She soon has her own elections upcoming. some French socialist breathing down her neck and her own coalition partner (that wants Greece out) in turmoil.
She will not be a happy bunny after she tried to get such a big debt reduction for Greece.
So now what Angela doesn't see as reliable is deemed to be extreme?
Similarly Christine Lagarde, before the elections, urged the Greek people to vote for the two main parties, which she said were the only responsible parties, labeling all other political forces as 'extreme' (or something to that effect). So basically Lagarde told the Greek people that the only responsible vote is a vote for either of the two parties that have ruled Greece over the last 30 years and bear huge responsibility for the situation we are now in.
How much more insulting to the intelligence of the Greek people could she have been?
So now what Angela doesn't see as reliable is deemed to be extreme?
Similarly Christine Lagarde, before the elections, urged the Greek people to vote for the two main parties, which she said were the only responsible parties, labeling all other political forces as 'extreme' (or something to that effect). So basically Lagarde told the Greek people that the only responsible vote is a vote for either of the two parties that have ruled Greece over the last 30 years and bear huge responsibility for the situation we are now in.
How much more insulting to the intelligence of the Greek people could she have been?
Well after they installed a prime minister for the Greeks it is no surprise they then tell the electorate how to vote.
Golden Dawn are freaks and thugs which had never managed to get over 1% of the vote up until recently. I am stunned that almost half a million people voted for them this time round, and I can only hope that in the main it was a protest vote never to be repeated.
Who wants to go on a holiday with smoke bombs, riots, neo-nazis, parties in government who favour work camps and kicking out foreigners and whose economy can violently collapse at any moment? Doesn’t sound like much fun to me.
Nor do businesses want to invest there, or any sane person buy a house and plan to holiday /retire there which is why Greece is in far deeper problems than Spain and Portugal etc are. At least they are addressing their problems in a constructive way.
How much more insulting to the intelligence of the Greek people could she have been?
She could have assumed they were too stupid to listen and would vote to make a bad situation even worse so nobody should attempt to help them in the first place.
Seriously though. Politicians in the EU specifically always comment about each other's elections and politics. The EU is supposed to be a single entity.
She could have assumed they were too stupid to listen and would vote to make a bad situation even worse so nobody should attempt to help them in the first place.
Seriously though. Politicians in the EU specifically always comment about each other's elections and politics. The EU is supposed to be a single entity.
Nobody says she shouldn't have commented. But if you are going to comment, at least learn a little bit about what you are commenting on. Her comment just showed her up to be clueless, as your comment is showing you up as much the same.
Are you seriously saying that it was stupid of the Greeks to reject the two parties which have ruled the country over the last 30 years? If you were Greek, what would you have voted for?
Oh well that makes it OK them. Maybe lots of tourists of the Nick Griffin persuasion would like to join in for their hols...
Look, if you only go on holiday to countries with a progressive liberal government and no extreme right-wing fringe, you aren't going to go on holiday anywhere.
Countries like Turkey and Italy are right out.
Millions of Europeans were quite happy to go on holiday every year to North African dictatorships until very recently, and it's not human rights concerns that have stopped them going.
Seriously though. Politicians in the EU specifically always comment about each other's elections and politics. The EU is supposed to be a single entity.
It a collection of member states not a single entity and politicans should keep their noses out of other member states' elections.
Who wants to go on a holiday with smoke bombs, riots, neo-nazis, parties in government who favour work camps and kicking out foreigners and whose economy can violently collapse at any moment? Doesn’t sound like much fun to me. .
Who would want to come and watch the Olympics what with riots, looting, Neo nazies, parties in government who favour workfare ( work camps without the camps) and kicking out foreigners and whose economy is back in recession. Along with huge queues to get into the country because the ruling government will not pay for border control staff ( unless you stump up over a grand to be fast tracked).
Doesn't sound like much fun to me;)
Are you seriously saying that it was stupid of the Greeks to reject the two parties which have ruled the country over the last 30 years?
Yes it is stupid if, as looks likely, there is no other viable party offering a credible solution to today’s problems, whatever they did in the past, even the recent past. Also because partly they got away with being corrupt for 30 years because the people didn’t demand transparency, and end to corruption etc. Greece has been a democracy for 30 years so it is time the people took some responsibility for how the country turns out and exercised some oversight instead of blaming everyone else for their ills. That argument can wash in a dictatorship but in a democracy the buck stops at the people – those who elected those who fiddled the books, failed to regulate the banks and ripped of the state, spent to much, failed to stop tax fiddling - or whatever they did. I don't think the discourse in Greece (what I have read seems to acknowledge this obvious fact).
It is the system which is corrupt not just the two parties which is why those elected this week are going to be immune from prosecution including ongoing criminal cases including violence in the cases of some of them. What is that if not a sign that the sytem is still corrupt and non-transparent?
There is no point changing parties, and just sending a new bunch of people to the same old corrupt situation with no more oversight and the same temptations to hand.
Yes it is stupid if, as looks likely, there is no other viable party offering a credible solution to today’s problems, whatever they did in the past, even the recent past. Also because partly they got away with being corrupt for 30 years because the people didn’t demand transparency, and end to corruption etc. Greece has been a democracy for 30 years so it is time the people took some responsibility for how the country turns out and exercised some oversight instead of blaming everyone else for their ills. That argument can wash in a dictatorship but in a democracy the buck stops at the people – those who elected those who fiddled the books, failed to regulate the banks and ripped of the state, spent to much, failed to stop tax fiddling - or whatever they did. I don't think the discourse in Greece (what I have read seems to acknowledge this obvious fact).
It is the system which is corrupt not just the two parties which is why those elected this week are going to be immune from prosecution including ongoing criminal cases including violence in the cases of some of them. What is that if not a sign that the sytem is still corrupt and non-transparent?
There is no point changing parties, and just sending a new bunch of people to the same old corrupt situation with no more oversight and the same temptations to hand.
Plenty of people have been demanding an end to the corruption and the lack of transparency for years, and now that even more people are doing the same, you call them 'stupid'. That says it all really.
I don't know if you are aware of this, but the parties that considerably increased their vote share in these elections did so on manifestos promising/demanding specific changes to the *system*, which you quite rightly say is corrupt, and, if I might add, very undemocratic. These changes include the end of the immunity you refer to, the change of the electoral system, the publication of all data and reports pertaining to our finances....but, anyway, I'm wasting my breath, because according to you voting for change was stupid...whatever.
It a collection of member states not a single entity and politicans should keep their noses out of other member states' elections.
The parties act as European wide parties on the supranational level and national parties discuss the EU and particular countries in their elections. How can the German Chancellor for example fail to comment on elections in France when both candidates are discussing what policies they plan to negotiate with her? A journalist is bound to ask her if such and such is actually open to negotiation and how far she is willing to go. And the voters in France need her response in order make an informed decision.
How can the UK Prime Minister not comment when basically the Greek and French electorate are discussing whether they should ask as to put in more money to finance growth in their countries? He has to say whether or not he will be willing to, and under what conditions, and that gives those nations electors something to thing about when assessing whether what their national politicians is saying is credible or not. Because to put it simply – you can’t renegotiate a deal when the otherside makes it clear your terms are unacceptable from the get go.
Any economist types out there... we keep hearing that Greece cant default etc. But why?? What does it mean for the day to day lives of Greeks? (Apart from a change of currency that is)
This is pretty much a cert to happen now but what will it mean for Greece the country??
I saw a good and clear explanation from an economist as to how it should and in his opinion why it should happen earlier this year.
The parties act as European wide parties on the supranational level and national parties discuss the EU and particular countries in their elections. How can the German Chancellor for example fail to comment on elections in France when both candidates are discussing what policies they plan to negotiate with her? A journalist is bound to ask her if such and such is actually open to negotiation and how far she is willing to go. And the voters in France need her response in order make an informed decision.
How can the UK Prime Minister not comment when basically the Greek and French electorate are discussing whether they should ask as to put in more money to finance growth in their countries? He has to say whether or not he will be willing to, and under what conditions, and that gives those nations electors something to thing about when assessing whether what their national politicians is saying is credible or not. Because to put it simply – you can’t renegotiate a deal when the otherside makes it clear your terms are unacceptable from the get go.
Well taking your made up examples.
On the first one Hollande never specifically said what he was planning to do if elected other than rather vague rhetoric and he still hasn't. Even if he had the correct response is we'll wait to see the results of the French election and work with whoever is elected.
On the second one the UK does not directly commit funds to finance bailing out the Eurozone or to boosting growth in France. Neither the Greek or French elections raised such issues and even if they had once again the correct response is we'll wait to see the results of the elections and work with whoever is elected.
I objected to your depiction of Greece as a Socialist State and a low tax heaven. Both these statements are incorrect.
Hmm, ok granted I rend to use a bit overstated language. But my impression, not also from the news is that there is a very high reliance on the State. IE, besides the numbers also friends of my gf seem to have been suddenly poor and waiting for State Money. That persons father has lost seemingly everything in a governmental reorganisation that interrupted his nepotistic links to building contracts. They also own a hotel in Samos that struggles.
His son also suffers the same fate. Another person complains that the ferries are in a state that become dangerous. Then there are demonstrations against illegal immigrants that seem to be shifted away from the mainland onto the islands.
A British expat reports that seemingly water is a huge problem, corrupt officials and so on.
There is exactly one Greek person on FB who doesn't seem to have a problem and she works in the shipping industry with international links.
Tax avoidance has been widely reported, it might not be a low tax haven if you pay tax, but seemingly people didn't while the State paid for a lot.
Personally I understand the average Greeks problem that didn't ask for the debts to be taken as much as I have 0 involvement in what Merkel does.
I also answered the initial question, and I am quite sure if the country defaults now also in reality, Greece will go down even further.
I also see history as something that repeats and given the last election results it seems entirely possible that Greece ends up with something more extreme than it is now when the sh|t really hits the fan.
Totally unregulated markets have caused you to be the first victims and the speculative bankers don't pay the price. Not the harmless guy in your local branch.
You need to understand maybe how the German tax system operates. You will pay you taxes, they don't give a flying sh|t if you end up on the street. Even Britain is a low tax haven compared to that.
It's a no mercy system.. Your bank accounts get taken down (no instalments!), your assets are striped, business is closed down on the date they want that money. I once tried to get a delay out of the German system. Aehm lol..
Comments
I believe the Germans have already accepted Greece may leave the € in fact privately I suspect many wish it would. If it drops out it doesn't mean the end of the Eurozone and in any case it may well be the best thing if others follow suit. The € is and never was a pass to a successful economy, it was always a political objective.
Spain actually has a relatively low level of public debt but has and is running very large deficits while Italy is in the opposite position and neither of them are in as bad a state as Greece.
Sorry, but he doesn't have the authority to do any such thing. He can do no more than express a wish to do it at the moment.
Yes, the situation is horrible and will continue to be. It may be better outside the Eurozone.
Doubtlessly some will remain totally ignoring of how much they are hated (besides the usual standard anti German hate).
You shouldn't spend so much time online. It can make you a little paranoid.
Sure he wont succeed but it's not really what Angela sees as reliable. She soon has her own elections upcoming. some French socialist breathing down her neck and her own coalition partner (that wants Greece out) in turmoil.
She will not be a happy bunny after she tried to get such a big debt reduction for Greece.
1) There has always been a sizable minority in Greece (and I include myself and the people close to me in this minority) that had NEVER voted for the lying governments. Not only had they never voted for these useless bastards, but they had been frequently demonstrating against them at every opportunity. Since you comment on Greece with such confidence, I assume you know a lot about the country, in which case you surely must know that we have always had a very active protest movement...a protest movement, which I should add, people with views very much like your own have always sneered at.....Maybe now you have started to understand that the people demonstrating had every reason to be doing so.
2) Some people voted for the lying governments for personal gain. I don't know how many these people are, but I absolutely despise them. I know, however, that there are also people who voted for them on good faith....Like many other countries, we essentially have had a two-party system all these years, and it has been hard for any other political force to break into the mainstream, not least because of a completely ridiculous and unfair electoral system. This has meant that despite their lies and their faults, the two major parties were seen by many as the only options, the only forces with the experience required to govern...so people alternated their votes between the two. When one party f*cked up, the other took over in a perpetual cycle which led to very little change. I believe this is not unique to Greece.
3) Tax evasion is a problem in Greece, but: a) the majority of Greeks pay their taxes (they couldn't avoid them even if they wanted to); b) there are reasons behind some of the tax evasion that go beyond individual greed, and I'm a bit fed up of people who have obviously never lived in Greece taking the moral high ground on this issue.
4) There is nothing socialist about first and foremost blaming the people in power, the people whose JOB it was to govern the country. When I f*ck up in my job, I don't try to pass the blame onto somebody else (the person who hired me, for instance)..I take full responsibility for my mistakes. That said, of course some of the electorate are to blame too, especially those who voted in return for favours, but it is a gross exaggeration to blame the Greek people collectively.
or confirm the truth.
There is an old saying, people in glass houses....
1) Alexis Tsipras (who I do not rate, by the way) made the perfectly valid point that the bailout deals, which were voted by a parliament that did not have the required popular mandate (something which has been made crystal clear by the elections), are essentially void. This is not an extreme viewpoint, unless you consider democracy to be extreme.
2) Golden Dawn, and to a lesser extent the Communist party, are the only extreme political forces in Greece. Even though SYRIZA has been labelled 'far left' by both the BBC and the Guardian, this couldn't be further from the truth. The majority of SYRIZA members are social democrats, and its voters cover the spectrum of the 'soft', moderate left.
3) I didn't object to your opinions on the holiday conditions in Greece, although having been to Greece recently, I don't see how anyone travelling outside of Athens would have had an experience any different to what tourists have always been having in Greece. I objected to your depiction of Greece as a Socialist State and a low tax heaven. Both these statements are incorrect.
This week the members of the Greek Nazi party attacked a journalist for criticising them. Among the criticisms - that she was Greek but born in Germany and so should watch her back....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/may/08/greece-press-freedom
Golden Dawn are freaks and thugs which had never managed to get over 1% of the vote up until recently. I am stunned that almost half a million people voted for them this time round, and I can only hope that in the main it was a protest vote never to be repeated.
So now what Angela doesn't see as reliable is deemed to be extreme?
Similarly Christine Lagarde, before the elections, urged the Greek people to vote for the two main parties, which she said were the only responsible parties, labeling all other political forces as 'extreme' (or something to that effect). So basically Lagarde told the Greek people that the only responsible vote is a vote for either of the two parties that have ruled Greece over the last 30 years and bear huge responsibility for the situation we are now in.
How much more insulting to the intelligence of the Greek people could she have been?
Well after they installed a prime minister for the Greeks it is no surprise they then tell the electorate how to vote.
Who wants to go on a holiday with smoke bombs, riots, neo-nazis, parties in government who favour work camps and kicking out foreigners and whose economy can violently collapse at any moment? Doesn’t sound like much fun to me.
Nor do businesses want to invest there, or any sane person buy a house and plan to holiday /retire there which is why Greece is in far deeper problems than Spain and Portugal etc are. At least they are addressing their problems in a constructive way.
She could have assumed they were too stupid to listen and would vote to make a bad situation even worse so nobody should attempt to help them in the first place.
Seriously though. Politicians in the EU specifically always comment about each other's elections and politics. The EU is supposed to be a single entity.
Nobody says she shouldn't have commented. But if you are going to comment, at least learn a little bit about what you are commenting on. Her comment just showed her up to be clueless, as your comment is showing you up as much the same.
Are you seriously saying that it was stupid of the Greeks to reject the two parties which have ruled the country over the last 30 years? If you were Greek, what would you have voted for?
Look, if you only go on holiday to countries with a progressive liberal government and no extreme right-wing fringe, you aren't going to go on holiday anywhere.
Countries like Turkey and Italy are right out.
Millions of Europeans were quite happy to go on holiday every year to North African dictatorships until very recently, and it's not human rights concerns that have stopped them going.
It a collection of member states not a single entity and politicans should keep their noses out of other member states' elections.
Who would want to come and watch the Olympics what with riots, looting, Neo nazies, parties in government who favour workfare ( work camps without the camps) and kicking out foreigners and whose economy is back in recession. Along with huge queues to get into the country because the ruling government will not pay for border control staff ( unless you stump up over a grand to be fast tracked).
Doesn't sound like much fun to me;)
Yes it is stupid if, as looks likely, there is no other viable party offering a credible solution to today’s problems, whatever they did in the past, even the recent past. Also because partly they got away with being corrupt for 30 years because the people didn’t demand transparency, and end to corruption etc. Greece has been a democracy for 30 years so it is time the people took some responsibility for how the country turns out and exercised some oversight instead of blaming everyone else for their ills. That argument can wash in a dictatorship but in a democracy the buck stops at the people – those who elected those who fiddled the books, failed to regulate the banks and ripped of the state, spent to much, failed to stop tax fiddling - or whatever they did. I don't think the discourse in Greece (what I have read seems to acknowledge this obvious fact).
It is the system which is corrupt not just the two parties which is why those elected this week are going to be immune from prosecution including ongoing criminal cases including violence in the cases of some of them. What is that if not a sign that the sytem is still corrupt and non-transparent?
There is no point changing parties, and just sending a new bunch of people to the same old corrupt situation with no more oversight and the same temptations to hand.
Plenty of people have been demanding an end to the corruption and the lack of transparency for years, and now that even more people are doing the same, you call them 'stupid'. That says it all really.
I don't know if you are aware of this, but the parties that considerably increased their vote share in these elections did so on manifestos promising/demanding specific changes to the *system*, which you quite rightly say is corrupt, and, if I might add, very undemocratic. These changes include the end of the immunity you refer to, the change of the electoral system, the publication of all data and reports pertaining to our finances....but, anyway, I'm wasting my breath, because according to you voting for change was stupid...whatever.
How can the UK Prime Minister not comment when basically the Greek and French electorate are discussing whether they should ask as to put in more money to finance growth in their countries? He has to say whether or not he will be willing to, and under what conditions, and that gives those nations electors something to thing about when assessing whether what their national politicians is saying is credible or not. Because to put it simply – you can’t renegotiate a deal when the otherside makes it clear your terms are unacceptable from the get go.
I saw a good and clear explanation from an economist as to how it should and in his opinion why it should happen earlier this year.
http://www.mindfulmoney.co.uk/wp/shaun-richards/how-the-necessary-greek-devaluation-and-default-should-and-hopefully-would-happen/
Well taking your made up examples.
On the first one Hollande never specifically said what he was planning to do if elected other than rather vague rhetoric and he still hasn't. Even if he had the correct response is we'll wait to see the results of the French election and work with whoever is elected.
On the second one the UK does not directly commit funds to finance bailing out the Eurozone or to boosting growth in France. Neither the Greek or French elections raised such issues and even if they had once again the correct response is we'll wait to see the results of the elections and work with whoever is elected.
Hmm, ok granted I rend to use a bit overstated language. But my impression, not also from the news is that there is a very high reliance on the State. IE, besides the numbers also friends of my gf seem to have been suddenly poor and waiting for State Money. That persons father has lost seemingly everything in a governmental reorganisation that interrupted his nepotistic links to building contracts. They also own a hotel in Samos that struggles.
His son also suffers the same fate. Another person complains that the ferries are in a state that become dangerous. Then there are demonstrations against illegal immigrants that seem to be shifted away from the mainland onto the islands.
A British expat reports that seemingly water is a huge problem, corrupt officials and so on.
There is exactly one Greek person on FB who doesn't seem to have a problem and she works in the shipping industry with international links.
Tax avoidance has been widely reported, it might not be a low tax haven if you pay tax, but seemingly people didn't while the State paid for a lot.
Personally I understand the average Greeks problem that didn't ask for the debts to be taken as much as I have 0 involvement in what Merkel does.
I also answered the initial question, and I am quite sure if the country defaults now also in reality, Greece will go down even further.
I also see history as something that repeats and given the last election results it seems entirely possible that Greece ends up with something more extreme than it is now when the sh|t really hits the fan.
Totally unregulated markets have caused you to be the first victims and the speculative bankers don't pay the price. Not the harmless guy in your local branch.
You need to understand maybe how the German tax system operates. You will pay you taxes, they don't give a flying sh|t if you end up on the street. Even Britain is a low tax haven compared to that.
It's a no mercy system.. Your bank accounts get taken down (no instalments!), your assets are striped, business is closed down on the date they want that money. I once tried to get a delay out of the German system. Aehm lol..