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Greece Tops Europe's Shadow Economies
While Greece may be the most corrupt nation in Europe, there appears another problematic issue for finance minister Yannis Stournaras when he discusses the way forward with his Swiss counterpart this week. As Bloomberg's Niraj Shah reports, Greece's difficulties with tax evasion are the worst in Europe. Accprding to a study from Johannes Kepler University, the size of the Greek shadow economy is a stunning 24% of GDP. One can only wonder what lesson this unintended consequence has for a US (or French) President besotted with extraction - especially as 74% cite "taxes are too high" as a reason for 'informal labor'.
The issue of "informal labor supply and demand" - or shadow economy is not about to be solved as attitudes across Europe are somewhat notably positive...
Source: Bloomberg
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By definition, governments will undercount the shadow economy.
I guess we are all jealous!
Fed up with Gov treating us like commodities for a source of cash
It's all death and taxes
I didn't know Mexicans made it all the way to Europe?
Compliance with the government is the one (and only) area Greece sets a positive example. When the US nanny and taxation state reaches its next level and fully takes over, I suspect the US underground economy will explode up as well.
Yeah, that way they can treat everyone like a criminal. Because you know, not giving them a share of what you earned is a crime. Not a protection racket. Talk about turning the table on you...
The citizens of Greece got absolutely screwed. The government and the bankers did the deed. Why follow the law if nobody else does? Bastards.
It's certainly more than that, but I can only judge from anecdotal evidence. What is not mentioned of course, is that the majority of this shadow economy is organised crime of many different kinds:
So, we are not that "free and happy" people as many commenters might think. The average person's contribution to the shadow economy is minimal.
The article also is in the general line of considering that the legal, non-shadow economy is all roses. What if you count the billions upon billions that Greek governments borrowed in order to overpay for products and services of multinational banks and corporations, also enriching the respective political elite at any given time in the past 40 years at least? Yes, this is counted as the "regular" economy. But we in the end have to pay for the rich balance sheets of those who benetffited from the whole story.
So, what is shadow and what is light in the end?
There are also barter networks in Greece -I heard, I don't know to what extent- that operate outside the tax system. I guess they are not big enough to be called informal economy.
Shadow really means black market which will be the largest market by 2020.
Where is fascist America on the list?
To the Greek "shadow economy" and agorist free people everywhere....welcome to the revolution.
So they economically have 'gone Greek' and are sticking it to the tax man! Epic.
50 Shades of the "Greek economy"
And soon to be all western economies
My degree in black marketing will finally pay off.
You didn't build that!
/
It is well-established that Greeks are very averse to taxes and will avoid paying them as far as possible:
Greek Wealth Is Everywhere but Tax FormsIn the wealthy, northern suburbs of this city, where summer temperatures often hit the high 90s, just 324 residents checked the box on their tax returns admitting that they owned pools.
So tax investigators studied satellite photos of the area — a sprawling collection of expensive villas tucked behind tall gates — and came back with a decidedly different number: 16,974 pools.
That kind of wholesale lying about assets, and other eye-popping cases that are surfacing in the news media here, points to the staggering breadth of tax dodging that has long been a way of life here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/world/europe/02evasion.html?pagewanted...
They freaking used google maps. Yeah, ultimately I suppose that is a sat photo but still, how ridiculous can things get? The IRS using google to track down swimming pools.
This has been going on for some time and people have been buying camouflage pool covers.
Why would a tax form have a box you check to indicate that you own a pool?
What difference does it make what the value of your assets is, let alone what form they take? Does Greece have a wealth tax? A special pool tax? WTF?
Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Belgium lead the shadow economy list...hmmmm I wonder what all of these countries have in common?
..hmm..it says that their citizen are not zombified enough to feed The Beast, unlike shall be say the united stateans that love to pay taxes to komrade Obamao?
'Shadow economies' means free markets. This is an example of their twisted reasoning, word magick. I have seen Mexican Mercados in Marin County, like a county fair - off the road apiece, someone's land rented for a Saturday, fresh food frying, almost no gringos. Who is going to prove they are not paying their taxes? You gonna send a lawman in there to shut them down? Learn the black markets, now./
Taxes are too high. Why shyould I allow the government to steal my hard earned dollars to fund CIA, NSA, wars for whatever reason no one knows why they are fighting, entitlements and such for those who abuse the system. overpaid government salaries and pensions?
Then add insult to injury, large corporations get away without paying taxes.
.gov you blew it by not being responsible with my money so I will keep it.
I remember years ago 40+ I used to live in Greece, they had a saying, South side of CRETE many years. But I also hiked much of Greece.
"We greeks ain't got shit, but we know what we have, you ameriKKKan's think you have something, but you ain't got SHIT"
How telling today?
Me thinks that the average greek has much more than the average ameriKKKan.
They have people purposely infecting themselves with HIV so they can get enough fiat to survive the month. And yet taxes are the high priority?
Greece ... beauitful beaches, beautiful women,
Great food, retsina, wine, women, feta, bread, olives to die for, olive oil from heaven,...
Yep, you ameriKKKan's think you got something, you ain't got shit, ...
Music dancing every night, greek easy-going, live&let live life-style,...
Yep, I can imagine how far the NAZI-USA AIPAC ISRAEL policy would go in GREECE, about 1 meter, and that zionist bitch would be dead.
In the USA the Zionist FUCK every hairlip USA citizen in the ASS, and the USA GUY say's MAY I have another"
In SUMMARY GREEKS HAVE BALLS, something ameriKKKans will NEVER fucking have.
It's always fun on someone else's dime amigo.
Oh go fuck yurself aszhole
Maybe Greece is the now the most modern country on the list.
Greece is just a spot on the map that must remain in Western control to keep the East (ie, Russia) from acquiring it for energy commerce, pipelines, etc. Which is why the ECB/EU does what it does and why it won't change until the Greeks start fighting and win.
If a countries shadow economy isn't 60% of free market trade I wouldn't want to live there, not enough slave free opportunity.
You would all do good to go to Greece and see how HUMANS are supposed to live,...but stay out of Athens just another fucking ZIONIST city.
*
Even the tax-collectors are afraid to venture into the villages, and that is how its supposed to be :)
You Anglo fuckers make me laugh.
ON other articles about the USA and the FED many fuckers-commenters here like to shout: "starve the beast, starve the beast".
IN other words, to not participate and pay taxes to the Gov. Beast.
EXACTLY what the Greeks are doing.
BUT you like to feel superior and berate the Greeks about doing it.
YOU look with a supposed envy at the Scandinavians and like to say that their protestantism and work ethic makes them rich, while you ignore that these Scandinavians are the biggest statists socialists in the world and they feed the Beast with their high taxes.
GREEKS played a special rule on this world. They brought philosophy and democracy to Europe. It's only fitting of them that they became Christian Orthodox (the only true Christian Church) and maintained their language and religion regardless of the muslims Ottomans.
THEY have still to play a major role: destroy the Beast. The EU.
YES, you anglo fuckers might have a better material life (Walmat, Amazon, BestBuy, Wall Street, etc) but you lack spirit. You lack life. The closer you are to the heart of the Beast (USA, Germany,UK, Israel) the more zombified one is.
Leaf, go fuck an olive tree, if you can find one that was wasn't burned down in 2008 to make way for condominiums.
Touched a nerve?
SO you fucker like to pay taxes to the Obamator. Pathetic united statean.
No guts. No spirit. No life.
I wrote a small blurb below about the Greek psyche. Thanks for proving my point.
A few 10-15 short years ago it was all the Greeks who were jumping up and down about Europe, the Euro and how they were going to get their European passport. Now your job is to destroy the EU?
Your sneaky, back-stabbing, childish and self-serving motives have all been summed up in your one post.
Thanks again.
Greek tax cheating filth, I got a solution for that. Just head down to the docks and sieze any boat over 10' until the owner explains where he got the money for it and then make him pay half its value to get it back, cars and houses same thing.
I know of a better solution. We ship you to North Korea. You can have all the statism you want over there, and then some.
Yeah that would be easy if the government had the moral authority to do so. Many of those boats would be siezed from government officials that got their job in a shady way and/or who embezzled state funds. Corrupt all the way around to a degree hard for outsiders to grasp.
You are kidding right?
The truth is always somewhere in the middle. The state should lead by example and the people should pay taxes knowing they will be spent properly and for the good of all.
Once you break that with corruption, on either side, and the equilibrium falters you get a bad situation. The Greeks, both in government and the people, carried this to the extreme. Not only did they screw it up to extreme levels (that you guys are just now starting to be able to even imagine), they did so with an added feeling of superiority and accomplishment for doing so. And now... the end is available for public viewing. This will happen in any country where both the public and the government act so childishly and with complete disregard.
I have writtem quite a few comments about this and sometimes the remarks were scathing. What I say doesn't matter at all or make any difference but the situation there was just soooooooo bad, what has happened was the only possible outcome. Lastly, this type of thing went on for so long that it trickled down into the psyche of the many of the people. It became a core value in society and it had to stop somehow.
Sweden, Norway and Germany's ranking are a bit of a surprise. I guess plenty of people having a bunch of Poles and other Eastern Europeans doing their house restoration projects informally.
European governments only have themselves to blame for shadow economies. The higher they raise taxes, the more they steal from citizens by way of corruption to line their own foreign bank accounts, the more money they pour down the throats of criminal bankers and corporate welfare, the more people move off the grid.
It's so simple, but so sad that politicians cannot understand it.
It's one of the easiest ways to thwart the State and help your community.