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Greece Proposes To Become A Tax-Collecting Police State: Will "Wire" Tourists And Unleash Them As "Tax Inspectors"
There were three notable items in the follow up, 11-page letter sent by Yanis Varoufakis earlier today to the Eurogroup, and its president "Jeroen."
But first, by way of background, here is what happened as recapped by Reuters.
Earlier today Greece sent an augmented list of proposed reforms on Friday (see the 11 page letter attached below) but EU officials said several more steps were required before any release of aid funds. In the Yanis Varoufakis outlined plans to fight tax evasion, activate a "fiscal council" to generate budget savings and update licensing of gaming and lotteries to boost state revenues. All noble ideas, and all set to crash and burn since it has all been tried and failed in the country in which paying taxes is considered theft (by the government).
However, the expanded list of reforms arrived too late for deputy finance ministers and European Commission experts who met on Thursday to scrutinise it before a regular meeting of finance ministers of the currency area next Monday. "Whatever proposals emerge (from Varoufakis), they can't be seen in isolation," said a senior EU official, who declined to be named due to the sensitive nature of the talks. "They have to been seen in the overall context of all policy measures ... There is no connection with the disbursements."
One key condition for Greece to receive any more euro zone money is for Athens to reach an agreement with its three international creditors - the euro zone, the ECB and the IMF - on the implementation of reforms agreed by the previous government. Such talks have not even begun yet.
This is a problem because as we reported hours ago, following its €310 payment to the IMF, Greece now literally has no money left, and absent some last ditch generosity from the Troika (pardon the Institutions, more on the latest Greek fetish of renaming things shortly), the next €350MM payment to the IMF due on March 13 will simply not be made (let alone the €580MM payment on March 16 and the €350MM payment on March 20).
* * *
Which brings us to the topic of this post - the Varoufakis letter (pdf courtesy of the FT).
First, we were delighted to see that as we cautioned in About The Authorship Of The Infamous "Greek Reforms" Memo, when we said that "for anyone who is involved in the creation, drafting, and production of mission-critical documents, whose metadata can have huge downstream consequences, the best solution is to simply read the brief manual on Redaction of Confidential Information in Electronic Documents which nobody ever does at least not before they hint save, print or send." Varoufakis appears to have done just that, and after the fiasco involving the authorship of the the first "Greek" letter to the Eurogroup, all the associated PDF metadata has been thoroughly scrubbed. Good job.
Second, among the various section headings, including:
- 1st Reform: FISCAL COUNCIL: Activating the Fiscal Council, achieving economices, and expanding its remit
- 2nd Reform: BUDGET PREPARATION & ORGANIC BUDGET LAW
- 3rd Reform: 'ONLOOKERS' VAT EVASION-FIGHTING SCHEME: Large numbers of causal (sic) "onlookers" to assist in the fight against VAT evasion
- 4th Reform: TAX ARREAS: Improving existing legislation
- 5th Reform: Immediate Public Revenue accrual through Online Gaming Services
- 6th Reform - ANTI-BUREAUCRACY, SELF-INFORMING PUBLIC SECTOR SCHEME
- 7th Reform - Provisions for the adoption of immediate measures to face the humanitarian crisis
There were a few notable findings, among which the estimation, cited by Varoufakis, that of the €76 billion in total tax arrears, only €8.9 billion are collectable; that Greece is considering tapping online/e-gambling as a "significant untapped public revenue opportunity) which could provide public revenue well "in excess of €500 million per annum"... however Greece admits it will require technical assistance "for monitoring internet-based gambling", and so on, the most interest proposal was the following.
Meet wired tourist part-time tax inspectors!
And here comes the Greek tax collecting police state, in which "large numbers of non-professional inspectors are hired to pose on behalf of the tax authorities, while 'wired' for sound and video... We envisage that the recruits will come from all walks of life (e.g. students, housekeepers, even tourist in popular areas ripse with tax evasion) who will be paid hourly and who will be hard to detect by offending tax dodgers."
And yes, while one can joke all day about wired tourists collecting hourly pay from the Greek government while moonlighting on behalf of the Greek tax collector agency (a process that will actually end up costing far more than collecting especially since the collectors have no incentive to actually catch anyone but to merely be paid as long as possible on an "hourly" basis), the real issue here is that Greece is effectively hoping to become a tax-collecting Police state: in which "the news that thousands of casual "onlookers" are everywhere, bearing audio and video recording equipment on behalf of the tax authorities, has the capacity to shift attitudes very quickly, spreading a sense of justice across society and engendering a new tax compliance culture - especially if combined with the appropriate communication of the simple message that the time has come for everyone to share the burden of public services and goods."
Actually, the only attitude it will shift is one toward civil war, as millions of Greeks, long used to generations of free-riding, are suddenly forced by the Greek Tax-collector police state to change their behavior, to which they will respond appropriately.
Ain't gonna happen, especially when one considers what happens to the tax-collector hopefuls once of them is captured and beaten to an inch of his life or just an inch further.
In fact, it would be more realistic if Greece asked to outsource all public and private communication to the NSA and then subcontract it to find who the tax evaders are. Especially since the NSA already knows all the perpetrators.
Of course, should this plan pass, the Varoufakis government has at most a few days before it is swept from power, most likely violently.
* * *
Which brings us to the third point, and the one which ties everything together. Because while Greece knows all too well that none of the proposed reforms are feasible, what it can do is ask for more money.
And it has, as can be seen below, only as Varoufakis calls it, don't call it a third bailout and instead use "Contract for Recovery and Growth of the Greek economy."
Which nicely rounds out everything the new government has achieved. Well, speaking loosely, because so far, all the Tsipras government has achieved is merely continue the much hated austerity policies enacted by Samaras and his predecessors, but it has managed to change a few terms around:
- instead of "Troika" it is now "Institutions"
- instead of "Liquidity" it is now "Cash Flow"
- and instead of "Third Bailout" it is now "Contract for Recovery and Growth of the Greek economy."
As for the conditions that the Troika, oops, Institutions, will impose in order to grant Greece the "Contract for Recovery and Growth of the Greek economy", well... hopefully you don't really need that left kidney.
If the Greek people are naive enough to fall for this, and believe this is how the radical-left government plans on "implementing" its campaign promises, then more power to them, if not to their pensions: those are about to be paid to the IMF so the IMF can then proceed to fund the US puppet regime in Kiev.
* * *
Full Vaourfakis letter below.
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Cowards. mark my words this will in fact start the cascading of another set of dominoes...
Completely "unforseen" of course...
Its always been about thoroughly asset stripping the Europeans.
In the USA the IRS reporting requirements merely lay out a road map to guide the banks in their North American asset stripping project.
Oh FFS just leave the Euro and default on the debt already.
Many Greeks feel that their govt has let them down and basically them demanding money from those few who still own a business is just outright theft. I am sympathetic to that view point, however they still seem to want a huge, bloated welfare state that provides everything for everyone. And you just can't have it both ways.
Yanis Varoufakis to productive Greek citizens:
"The floggings will continue until morale improves."
[The Greeks voted Syriza in to go to war against the EU. Instead, they're going to war against their own citizens...]
Varoufakis consults for Valve Corporation, the viideo game company. I wouldn't place high trust unto anyone who pushes video games. Tspiras/Varoufakis authenticity was questionable from the get-go. Lots *hoped* they would be legit, but they're turning out to be bankers' puppets. Too bad, too sad.
Correct!
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/01/29/a-soros-trojan-horse-in...
Who in their right mind would travel to Greece as a tourist right now?
For the same reason people take Detroit "urban blight" tours:
https://roadtrippers.com/blog/urban-exploration-tours-bringing-droves-of...
Looks kind of interesting, actually. Like visiting the ancient Roman ruins, but you get to see it in real time, as it happens.
So how hard is it for Greek people to legally buy Guns? How hard is it to export Guns to Greece? I see a huge market about to come into existence.
The Greeks are actually pretty good black marketers and smugglers, for thousands of years. The only problem is Yani wants a cut for not doing anything ;-)
Don't know but Eric Holder might be a good start
"Who in their right mind would travel to Greece as a tourist right now?"
Get outside of Athens and the Greek people are lovely, warm, and hospitable (even most in Athens aren't so bad).
This whole episode reveals for anyone with eyes to see how utterly worthless and feckless governments are.
Just what Greece needs: a dagger poised over the heart of one of its major industries, tourism. Just wait until all Greek businesses which interact with tourists start treating all tourists with suspicion. THAT'll show em.
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
After they put all the Greeks in prison for tax fraud,
then what?
Simple... they sell all the tax prisoners off as slaves on eBay to make the bankers who engaged in this fraud fiasco whole.
Let's see... 325 billion euros debt divided by 10 million people equals 32,500 euros per Greek slave which is even cheaper than hiring a Mexican...
You've heard of Jump the Shark, right?
This is a slight variation on that ... Milk the Cow
[quote]
a tax-collecting Police state: in which "the news that thousands of casual "onlookers" are everywhere, bearing audio and video recording equipment on behalf of the tax authorities, has the capacity to shift attitudes very quickly, spreading a sense of justice across society and engendering a new tax compliance culture - especially if combined with the appropriate communication of the simple message that the time has come for everyone to share the burden of public services and goods." [/quote]
Bwahahaha! My one-word response: "BLOWBACK!"
Reality pay per view tv show, lots of butt sex
Well, Valve is a highly rated product by their users, that offers a competitive product on the largest entertainment industry in the United States in real $ .
That's called private sector work and it gives some credit to him, actually working a real job other than just being an academic.
Just because you disagree with video games, doesn't make the economics of the industry any less important.
PS:
Call of Duty is training an entire generation of semi-autismal children how to most efficiently how to run around and kill everyone.
I don't think square, circle, up does a whole lot in real life.
Psycholocial desensitization to shooting people. Aggressive tactical game play.
The hardest part about killing like a machine is your consious gets in the way.
When you have that part conditioned and your brain has been rewired by 1000s of hours of combat simulation you will be mentally ready for combat. With this being said, not gonna make everybody a killer, but would definitly give them an edge over a kazak goat herder who has his mommy sing him to sleep with his favorite kid goat jippy nestled in beside him.
But Valve and Steam are awesome. vidya 4 lyfe.
"The Greeks voted Syriza in to go to war against the EU. Instead, they're going to war against their own citizens..."
So it's not different this time then?
Apparently so. If they don't default in 4 months, they'll be as cooked as the previous gov regardless of their rhetoric. Next stop then, GD... platform on the right !
You are exposing a truth that is usually suppressed on ZH and (oddly) by anti-austerity Krugmanites also. The battle of Greece is usually presented as a two-party struggle between the fearless, noble people of Greece and the baby-eating vampire Eurocrats of the EU. But really it's a three-part struggle:
1) Greeks who love their welfare state and want lots of government checks, semi-show government jobs etc.
2) "Productive" and/or rich and/or conservative Greeks who don't believe in free lunch and don't want to pay taxes for the (1)
3) Other Eurozone countries who don't want to subsidize the Greek welfare state any more than they foolishly already have (because they have their own welfare states to think about)
It is well to remember that Goldman Sachs ably assisted the Greek government in covering up their Debt to GDP ratios over a decade ago, through the clever use of "structured products." This material misrepresentation was done so Greece could obtain EU membership. Mario Draghi, call your office.
While I do not doubt Greece has a free shit problem (as do all socialist/western countries), clearly the biggest beneficiaries of the something for nothing mentality are the bankers themselves. They create debt and structured products out of thin air and then live on the interest and trading revenues associated with it. It would be interesting therefore to see how much of the Greek budget goes to social welfare spending and how much to debt service.
Great post. Getting tired of the welfare to the bankers being seen as similar to social welfare. The first is the greatest threat and impediment, designed to bleed an entire nation dry, the latter is an issue to address after the greatest threat and fraud is correctly dealt with. There has been enough information posted on ZH alone to demonstrate the bankster tricks and welfare are the prime problems. Keep in mind pretending to protect a pension is a bankster trick to limit uprising...its a well played con game.
It's the fatal flaw of so called democracies. You vote people in based on what they promise to do, only for them to then do the exact opposite... and all you can do is wait until the next election... in the meantime you just have to bend over and take it. Then put your faith in someone who once again promises to do something and fails yet again.
Might as well just go commie and get it over with. You don't have to care about votes, you have no real say... but that say never mattered in the first place. At least those being put in charge are not complete and total hacks though.
The only way to fight this is by withholding your money though avoiding taxes in as much as possible without getting yourself into jail, and avoiding purchasing every new piece of iCrap (for example) touted as "indispensable" to civilized living. It's the modern version of going Galt. Thay's why physical PM is so good for saving your money... on top of everything, is very convenient for hiding, smugling, under the table payments, and such...
It's a relief to not vote, because firstly, it makes not a scrap of worthwhile difference if you do; secondly, you are then not the idiot who voted in these other idiots; and thirdly, you no longer have to give a shit about what any side of the political propaganda farce says, because they are all totally lying any way; Fourthly, the pwned MSM then has zero power to be the tail that wags your pet political dog and constantly fuck with your head, heart, peace-of-mind and intent.
So if we are going to have pure dictatorship in a pure police state where coersion and torture, to enforce reality, is standard practice, then let's stop the pretense of Law and remove parliaments already, and let the police arrest all opponents and critics, and either enslave them (already got that covered), or kill them (more efficiently).
However, if a core political promise was to offer free Nembutal to all citizens on demand I guarantee you the party that did that would win the largest landslide victory in all democratic hystery.
That might send some feedback about the relative questionable success of democratic party politics, resulting intolerable cultural sickness and the abject inhuman perverse stupidity and total injustice of what passes for good order and the 'Rule of Law'.
BTW, communism sucks ass too. Keep the ideological constructs, they make me projectile vomit.
"... in the meantime you just have to bend over and take it"
As in doing it Greek?
Its not so much the "fatal flaw of so called democracies" its more the perfect kind of psy op.
Train people to vote for change, give them the hope and opportunity to vote for change (all rather a peaceful and civilised process)...exhaust them, fake them and then play them. Its a wearing down process whilst people are grappling with day to day costs, decline in industry, fake free trade deals, technocratic regulations growing exponentially, new costs/taxes/debts etc that are increasingly complex .... its a game used against the average person who does not know words today have reverse meanings.
Actually you can. The idea of money as a limited resource and commodity is one of the things we're going to outgrow -- how long and painful a process that is, who knows.
Banks create money out of nothing and have done so since before we went off the gold standard. The gold standard didn't actually represent discipline because unless you have constant ongoing audits by anyone who requests them, there is no accurate verification of who has how much gold. Leaving the gold standard was the result of increased military spending which made what was previously a sufficiently credible lie -- that U.S. treasury bills are backed by a quantity of gold -- become a transparently false lie and so you had the equivalent of a bank-run by France which brought that particular dog and pony show to an end. It was no longer possible to maintain the facade, but my point is that it had long been a facade. It may have always been a facade. The idea that governments act as guardians of currency value by maintaining some transparent ongoing metals exchange is an Austrian school fantasy. Even more of a fantasy is the idea that this is the 'real' secret column which is holding up currency values. Cool story, bro.
In the Austrian economics world, runaway money printing destroys the value of a currency and results in hyperinflation. In the most famous example of Weimar this resulted from very specific conditions having to do with massive currency outflows as reparations and the simultaneous need to import basic goods from the same countries as were being paid reparations. Those countries were surfeit with Reichsmaerke, and didn't want any more currency pumped in, so import prices for foreign goods to germany skyrocketed and suddenly germans couldn't buy food. Thats totally different than a government printing money and investing it in the populace and in building social capital. Faith in a nation's social capital is the actual source of currency value.
Let's return back from Austrian economics world to the real world. In reality, those who went on a money-printing binge and their benefactors were able to consolidate a world empire and a stranglehold on world assets, creating a new de facto global aristocratic class that owns something like 85% of all things that exist. Because of printed money, they ruled the world for 30+ years, and because of printed money, they now own real things like railroads, ports, properties everywhere, the stock market (ok so not a real thing), actual companies.
In Austrian fantasy world, the rich people pay for all this money printing because there is a "day of reckoning". Thats a pipe dream!! The money may have been created out of nothing, but the boats, planes, trains, ships, factories and man-hours they purchased with those dollars, are definitely not nothing!
The point of my rant is this: If you think that money creation can't support us all (to an extent), and subsidize everyone (to an extent), then its YOU who are living in a fantasy world. The people who own YOU and ME and all of us got there by creating money from nothing! It is backed by the faith in the social capital of those countries, something roughly analogous to "belief in the ongoing existence of the country and its people and government". Don't give me this bullshit about we can't support a welfare state because the resources just aren't there -- when a bank threatens to go under, suddenly billions materialize out of nowhere -- funny how that works, eh? Investigations into government misspending in the early 2000s uncovered *trillions* of dollars unaccounted for. Then those investigatory reports were revised, as per the famous Rumsfeld comment, that suddenly the money was found and had been accounted for.
Please do not believe in the scarcity of money, or that "there is not enough to go around". That is one of the cornerstone lies of this entire establishment.
Long and convoluted nonsense ! That "out of nothing" money is in reality debt which is supposed to be paid back by somebody, someday... with interest. Sorry but there is no free lunch ! Also, not everybody is "owned" (whatever that means in your mind), so next time better speak for yourself...
Good post.
Power is very complex and simple ideas like that only a certain amount of debt or money is tennable are foolish. As long as they can keep everyone in control, there's no reason to believe that they can't get away with anything. It's all arbitrary to begin with! They'll certainly need to be inventive to maintain their control, but that's a given.
The dream that everything's coming to an inevitable end where those in power will get their payback and we'll all live happily ever after almost seems like it was inspired by Christianity's dream of a "final judgement" where god punishes all the wealthy and successful and rewards all the poor, weak, and incompetent. Both dreams are -- coincidentally? -- held by precisely the poor, weak, and incompetent. Of course they're not to blame: they're trapped and it's rather hopeless for them.
Ultimately this dream itself is just one representation of the will to power and a cunning strategy by which one group of people hopes to achieve it.
Things may crash, but I wouldn't take that as evidence that they must have crashed. They could have crashed upteem times already, and they could never crash. Who knows. Most importantly, I wouldn't suspect that things would be any different after the crash! There will still be power, although it will take a new and more cunning form (as it always must).
Their gov't was installed (follow the money Carl) to screw them. Maybe there are some true believers in the party but are they the shot callers? It sure doesn't look that way.
I still am holding out faith that they will.
Greece could be doing a "mini-prop-up" of their part of the system to give them breathing space to go ahead and attend to as many of the details as possible for GREXIT. Talk to and pay lawyers. Create the template/pathway. Print new Drachmas. They are dead broke and don't even have any money to pay for the bankruptcy. They made that loan payment today (WTF?). That is an irony of going bankrupt, often you cannot afford the lawyer.
They are coming up with stupid shit to look like they are doing something so they can have time to do something.
As I type that, I am filled with doubt. But in the face of disaster, one tries to mitigate the damage as much as they can.
And this is a potential collapse of the entire system. Better for the dominoes to fall in as orderly a manner as possible.
What if, just what if, it really is true that no one escapes this, even the uber-wealthy? They will want time to work it to their best advantage.
ahahahahaha!!!! stop it!!!! the LEFTISTS will embrace the EURO with open arms and RAPE its subjects - hahahahaha!!!!
Leftists? LEFTISTS? this is not about right or left, this is about the 0.01% raping everybody until we all have a 10 pound asshole @29%
LOL!! No, it's all about leftists and their big Gov. promises.
You can call them leftists or statists. Their goal is a big brother cradle to grave police state. You can't have a welfare state without a police state.
YV lied when he said he wasn't using game theory. Tell one tell them all.
The Greeks were told by Mr Draghi yesterday that they're getting a big fat zero from the euroQE (non)money - this makes a Grexit more likely but Syriza will first have to demonstrate to the Greeks that from the eurocrats they'll only get enough rope to hang themselves. Still the Greeks are europhiles and it'll take some time until they take to the streets to demand Grexit...
phew, this is really tense...
(btw in my view Mr Draghi's stance was an own goal - shot himself in the foot)
Once every ounce of wealth that is in Greece has been stripped out of Greece they will either become a full on police/slave state or be kicked to the curb as the worthless piece of trash it will be. They are done barring a revolution within the next few months.
But knuks, they will have all their country bombed into rubble if they do. And worse yet, they will be labeled evil doers.
" Hellenic Republic " LOL!!!
There is no such thing as a republic anymore...
I propose a spelling change to RAPEUBLIC.
I like it. Or maybe the more direct RAPEPUBLIC.
That was my initial choice as well, but the extra P gets in the way of syllabic compatibility, not that the original word has any meaning left.
So Greece just scraped together a loan payment so they can get another loan to make another loan payment?
Sounds workable.
pods
I've said this same thing before:
Given that the Greek bailouts have been solely to allow the Greek government to continue making payments to the ECB; Greece should simply suggest that the bailout money go directly from the ECB back to the ECB; taking Greece out of the loop completely...
Please, its a lot like that already, they pretend to give Greece a loan and Greece pretends to pay it. The issue being that only one of them has access to the fucking printer....
Not as much commission money would be made that way, and bankers never give up an opportunity to make a commission.
Thats how you use credit cards isn't it?
And the U.S. will be an asset-stripping goldmine.
"...then more power to them, if not to their pensions: those are about to be paid to the IMF so the IMF can then proceed to fund the US puppet regime in Kiev..."
The U.S. will need to pay for the upcomming war with Iran somehow. You know the banksters are pissed about all that U.S. money sitting in 401k's that they can only rehypothicate a few times. That's like stealing profit directly from the pockets of banksters!
They can't unleash full inflation on the U.S. population until they can get their hands on that money first. You know it's only a matter of time before they come after that with some kind of bogus bank shares or 'special' UST savings bonds with a very low fixed interest. You will be obligated to replace the assets in your pensions or 401Ks with those to maintain tax exemption. As soon as that happens and they can get enough people to comply, you can expect inflation to triple.
The only way the Fed can dig their ass out of this mess is their old standby: inflation and more inflation to shrink their debt load. As long as they can raise governement employee wages and increase social program payments, they can fuel inflation without riots ensuing.
They cannot raise government employee wages and socal program payments without throwing further fuel on the fire. Doing so will just increase the debt load. That's the problem with inflating their way out of the debt. The higher the inflation, the more people will have to borrow to make ends meet. The only people who will come out ahead are those who can unplug from the system and those who have no debt and hold real assets. For the vast majority, it will be running faster and faster on a hampster wheel until the centrifugal force crushes them.
If you aren't rich, and you expect hyperinflation, you ought to be able to provide the basic necessities of life yourself. That way, when people are scrambling for those necessities and taking on more debt, you can bum a $1 million dollar bill and pay off your debts, knowing that everybody else is about to get shafted. I've heard the argument that this would be banned, but think about how few people can actually do this. Not enough to make a difference. If any banks were to survive to forclose on people, very few people would be debt free.
I doubt the banking system as we know it is going to survive what is coming.
What this means for mortgages? I haven't a clue. I would wager they are nationalized. Everyone gets a new "lender." Eventually property ownership might switch to property leasing. Already there regarding property taxes actually. All that is needed is a timeframe on the mortgage.
If the banks go down, the federal government won't be far behind. At the very least, it will become impotent. There is a decent chance that it will cease to exist all together.
No shit, LoP. Goodbye Syriza, hello Golden Dawn. (Or some other such group.)
Snitchez get stitchez, bitchez!
+100 for the gangsta colloquialism...
thats pimpin...
Whats sad is a new group will come in and sell out to the banksta's. Its a revolving door.
That's the way it goes when foolish individuals continue to insist that the elite class must threaten and abuse them for their own good.
This crack down will lead to Golden Dawn with the "I told you so". So how do we start selling Ammo in Greece, I think thier will be high demand in the short term.
I foresee a rash of fatal "accidental" food poisonings.
The whole system internationally is cowardly when no one is willing to bit the bullet.
Governments are cowardly for not making an attempt to shrink their bloated bureaucracies and bloated spending.
People are cowardly for not coming to grips with the fact that their standard of living is set to decline.
People become even more cowardly when they do not stand up to their government.
The downhill ride is set to continue until a match is lit somewhere.
In Greece the people have to accept what Tsipras is doing because they elected him on the basis of reversing their plight but on condition of remaining in the Euro. They are therefore deserving of what they are getting.
"People become even more cowardly when they do not stand up to their government."
People don't realize that they don't have to stand up to government in order to end the abuse. All they have to do is turn away. First by ones, then by twos...
Tourist tax spies are the sort of quackery explained by the phenomena seen in this picture...Seriously, the person who wrote that and the person who approved it are both mentally imbalanced.
.
One of your best yet, and that's saying a lot! Love your work Bonz!
Tourist tax spies: FATCA wearing bermuda shorts and sunglasses.
Beauty Banzai, patty hearst SLA.. He must have stockholm syndrome..
Yo WB, I know you already did some Rambo series. May I suggest "Scambo"? :-)
Cowards? It takes *balls* to propose this!
Radical left government? This is the leading edge of the last best effort to save capitalism such as it is in Greece and Europe.
Police State? Greece needs a state that can agree on laws and then follow them. That will take a struggle. Did you think it would be easy?
If by Police State you mean one where laws are imposed by the elite and enforced by arbitrary arrests, goon squads and death squads, this is the alternative.
Which is it Tyler?
NSA fucking with me today...
.
I see that the Ukrainian solution has been decided for Greece. Syriza intends to go to war with its own people.
I'm starting to very strongly disapprove of Germany's role in all this. They're acting as an imperial plunderer, yoking the people of Greece to drag forward German banks. You'd think the people who were humane enough to value the Ostermark at 1:1 with the Deutchemark would see the value in abandoning its imperial project in Greece, but this is all the proof we need of the direction the German-dominated Eurocrats really intended to pursue...
Hint czarangel, Germany is still occupied by a bunch of people who themselves are occupied by especially chosen 5th collumists
<< - Syriza has to do what it must to mobilize Greek people to free selves from banksters.
<< - Syriza's is just a repressive police state, trampling on liberties. Bring on Golden Dawn!
Just asking ... 'cause I want to know where I am and who I'm hanging out with.
Don't like the choice? Post your alternative below!
Wow, talk about complete desperation. A real clue we've reached the endpoint.
Schizo MSNBC: slam Hillary, then blame the righthttp://tinyurl.com/o84rjs8
Read somewhere yesterday that she had the server set up to have about 10 domain names. Then there are several email accounts for each of those.
She fired some high level State Department guy for not using a dot gov account for State department related email. And, recall that Petraus was prosecuted for having documents on the home computer. Anyone believe that there were not sensitive documents circulated through her server?
She has all of the necessary caharcteristics to be the Democrat who would follow the liar Obammie.
I guess they are trying to get overthrown. Even for socialists their setting records for screwing the population.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-24/mutiny-athens-central-committee...
"Rarely has a strategy been confuted so unequivocally and so rapidly."
Yanis Varoufakis outlined plans to.. update licensing of gaming and lotteries to boost state revenues.
More gambling to support the gambling habits of the global bankers. Can't make this shit up anymore.
Maybe the Germans could send some of their tax collectors to help. The kind who wear camoflage, carry guns and drive around in APCs.
"We swear it's not an invasion. We're just here to help collect the taxes, per the Troika 'agreement' (no longer the 'plan')."
'Institution agreement', remember? They got rid of the hated Troika.
My mistake. The power of changing the name of something is astounding.
My wife said I had to "take care of my chores" the other day. I had no idea what she was talking about. Turns out it wasn't sex, it was just some bills that needed to be paid. I was so relieved.
...oh, nevermind. You said Germans in GREECE. I thought you were referring to the US. My bad.
good luck with being re-elected Syriza!!!
Who says there's going to be another election?
Time to drag out some HL Mencken:
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
One more..
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
And again:
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
Greeks will certainly not re-elect a government which actually makes efforts to collect taxes.
The current non-payment of taxes has just compounded the problems of the country.
I told you these commie jokers would fold from the very beginning. The only thing the Greek people wanted was more free stuff, and to not have to live within their means.
http://youtu.be/GS5vb3tnQVQ?t=5m12s
the banksters want their interest (USURY) payment.......god save the banks!!
Ya gotta love 'em. They're the only ones left in society with any fucking balls.
And my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
'Cause I'm the Taxman...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzLe8R1bL4c
Usury is generally considered to be charging a debtor an exxcessive rate to borrow. Greek bonds outstanding are at rates near 3.5%. They also receive some kickbacks on those rates from any interest spread profits the various EU lenders earn on the rate spread carry.
Complaining that Greeks are being gouged by rates is moronic.
The original definition of usury was “the practice of lending money at interest”, and this is what usury means from a Biblical perspective.......the modern (Rothschilds) definition added the word 'excessive' interest.........just sayin......
Then the problem is nobody will lend at 0 % interest unless it's the gov who lend or a central bank that buy all the bonds with fake money (forbidden by the Bible also) and ZIRP or even NIRP interest rates.
The only way that can I see ZIRP is with a strong "deflationary" currency like Gold or Bitcoin where price of stuff tend to reduce year after year due to the currency appreciating as the economy expand. In short the total reverse of our system we see today !
Ahhh the conundrum of our existence. Interest demands exponential growth on a finite planet.
Yeah, but you have to admit that was WORLD CLASS folding. Breathtakingly quick. From fire and brimstone threats to "yessir, whatever you say" in the blink of an eye.
You know there's only two things that make somebody change their mind that fast:
1. Gun to the head.
2. Sizable bribe.
I'll leave it to your imagination which it was. (Hint: they aren't mutually exclusive choices)
Yeah, I'm left wondering on that too. I'm also curious as to what particular kind of gun to the head was used, if one was, in fact used. Oh, the conversations behind closed doors...
If I wanted to be a dirty crooked fuck, I'd pull the gun to the head and say "take the bullet, or take the bribe." Not taking the bribe wouldn't be an option. In the event that the person squeals, you always have the fact that they took the bribe to beat them over the head with. It's called destroying their credibility.
For your post to be valid (+ 9 up-voters!) there should be Independent Third Party Sollution to Greek Crisis to which you, then, compare Current Administration moves and to call threat or bribe ?
Like I said, they are commies. i.e. Godless cowards. None of which are found in foxholes.
I predict much Greek wailing and gnashing of teeth when the Biscuit wheels fall off'n the Gravy train!
That's a German policy if I ever saw one.
What a terrible idea. The marxists will never learn. Greece is well on its way to becoming a failed state like Venezuela or Zimbabwe.
This is incredible and where our society is headed.
How is this going to stop the commonly used convention of "Greek Diner Accounting Standards" that has been imbedded into the Greek society's DNA for the past 2 thousand years?
Just annex them to Russia. They can't afford to be sovereign anymore.
(And their women are amongst the world's worst looking too...)
It seems Larry has a down voter who likes hefty women with 5 o'clock shadow mustaches. ;-).
If anyone of you considers applying for such a position, I warn you: I'm armed.
It seem to me tax evasion in Greece is a another Greek statistic. Yes there is tax evasion, but nowhere near the scale the Greek governments have claimed. My guess is that every time they couldn't balance the budget, they just offloaded the deficit to tax evasion. Tax compliance is becoming the modern inquisition.
When you have to pay 23% sales tax, a 10-20% tax on your cellphone bill, an almost 70% tax on your gasoline, a combined 1% tax on your property value EACH YEAR (value which is calculated on the bubble valuations of 5 years ago, and is currently 40-50% above market prices), and several other indirect and direct taxes on actual or sometimes, imaginary income, wouldn't it occur to anybody that we just CAN'T keep paying all of this and still survive?
The Greek rates seem to be about the same as elsewhere in the EU. Greeks just don't pay.
We all pay this but most of us are too tame and complacent.
I respect the Greeks for telling tax collectors to stuff it where the sun don't shine!
Go Greeks!
Tax compliance is becoming the modern inquisition. +100
If only that message was being promoted right here.
"Tax compliance is becoming the modern inquisition."
Yes and the Grand Vizer of this 'modern inquisition' is the USA and its outrageous FATCA and FBAR.
There haven't been any decent articles at ZH on the scandal that is FATCA.
How many are like you though? Why no armed revolution, has the breaking point not been reached?
Not many. But again, hard working people that actually produce something are never the majority.
Have you seen Greek employment statistics? There are more people on the government payroll than there are on the private sector. The majority in Greece is fed by the state. Just like in every other socialist third world banana republic. If the EU really wants to help Greece, they should kick them out and bring them face to face with reality. Everything else is aiding a failed state kick the can.
Greece can learn from the US payroll tax system. The Governement collects it from everyone, then you have to file to prove you didnt need to pay it. Just start collecting X% of revenue from every business in greece, and make them file annually to prove they over collected by showing reciept of payment. Introduce SAR reports for any cash transaction over 5000 euros, and there you have it.
Short of requiring every transaction to be made by credit card, there can be no system of capturing most transactions.
Perhaps the government can issue prepaid cards of its own similar to phone cards.
But despite all this the Greek debt situation is untenable so any measures taken will just make the political and economic situation even worse.
It is clear that Europe wants to be rid of this government and is prepared to do so at any cost.
By making tourists the targets of pissed off Greeks it won't take long to destroy the tourist industry. Brilliant.
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: ALL PATRONS MUST PASS THROUGH MENS/WOMENS STRIP SEARCH AREAS BEFORE ENTERING STORE. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION.
BOOM, there goes the Greek tourism business, just when the euro being in the tank is good for the PIGlets.
It's all noise. The Greek government knows full well what happens next. Their people are taking out more and more Euros from the banks and either stashing it or sending it outside.
The paint on the new Drachmas is almost dry. There is no other choice for them and they realized this over the past couple weeks.
Haircuts are coming for everyone. Already the papers in Germany are preparing the people for loss of savings and loss of pensions and retirements. NIRP is showing its effects. Has nothing to do with Greece.
The oligarchs and banksters in Europe are going full steam ahead and fucking the people 7 ways to Sunday. No wonder they are so concerned and threatened by every national party movement that shows up somewhere.
What the fuck do they expect the people will do? Bend over and take it all in?
FUCK THE BANKSTERS
I think that they do expect the people to bend over and take it, given that this is what most people have been doing for the almighty financial institutions with their god-like powers and omniscience for many years now.
If you had a 7+ year winning streak against an opponent that rarely even bothered to show up, you'd probably get a little cocky too.
Rebuilding burned down Greek government and bank buildings will probably give more of a boost to gdp than normal commercial and housing stock.
just looking for the silver lining.
I'm sure for a fee the NSA will be happy to activate the mics in their phones and you can have all the real-time data you could ever hope for.
I'm sure the Greeks will be ok with that. What say you Mr. Panos?
Whoa guys think of the Win Win.. all that revolving employment, nobody has to be without a Job, they can all spy on each other..
long.. pins that read I am wired. Smile and have a nice day...
See something? Tax something!
A police state? Created by neo-marxists in collusion with world socialist bankers? C'mon, you're kidding me.
Stick a fork in Greece, it's done. When they resort to this to pay the banksters it's finished. The Greek people have nothing to lose and will turn against those in government.
With what harsh words...
Looks like Golden Dawn was elected.
Like I said , the tax collector will show up at the door with a truncheon next.
Best bet is to pay snitches a cut on taxes. Give a snitch 10% on all taxes reported.
Is there a link where I can apply to become a bitchass tax evader snitch rat? I hear the islands are beautiful this time of year and if I can get someone busted and fuck their children outta food on the table for 7 bucks an hour SIGN ME THE FUCK UP!
This sounds like the KGB or Stasi. But, I will do this for free in Wash DC around the capital bld but no aimed at tourists.
I know, right? What a great way to subsidize vacation costs. Greece should also benefit from the tourism boom this kicks off, at least until the Greeks start randomly assaulting tourists in response to the initiative.
The IRS provides taxpayer monies to snitches. Akin to a finders fee.
How about using some of the Greek army guys to collect back taxes using waterboarding, torture, jail treats etc.
That shoulld work, rght?
Get ready for dead tourists.
So even though a large percentage of personal lifestyle is based upon public (redistribution) spending, a societial folkway exists to thwart contributions so to speak. What does this say about Greeks, who are howling and demanding an end to the so-called "austerity," that is a lessening of redistributionist payments (thefts from the producers to swaddle the anti-austerity army)? And, Syriza and their voters demand more redistributionist payments from the rest of the EU members and seek to thwart contributions to the EU. For the life of me, I fail to see why the Greeks are considered "victims" by so many @ ZH. What am I missing in weighing the validity of the viewpoints?
To me, Greece is the niggertown of Europe.
Fuck em
They are victims in the broad sense that all European countries are victims of this European Union scheme. I find it similar to the U.S. sub-prime housing boom, another bankster scheme that tapped into the greed of the general public. From Goldman Sachs right down to the illegal Mexican migrant worker "buying" a $300K house. The EU and its criminal banker support arm sold the idea to the less well-off Mediterranean countries that they were instantly rich and handed them a bunch of Euro loans. It all seemed great until it wasn't.
The ZH posters calling the Greeks victims are mostly composed of the 47% of US taxpayers who pay nothing. Governments should be volunteer operations. Entitlements are funded from Obama's stash.
Tax evasion in Greece is a primary reason for that country’s massive budget shortfalls.
According to The Washington Post in 2012, tax evasion accounted for “roughly half the country’s budget shortfall in 2008 and one-third in 2009.”
A bigger question, says WaPo, is “why Greece hasn't been able to crack down on tax evasion,” and notes that “Greek officials seem to have a very good idea of who's avoiding taxes:
“In 2010, the parliament took up a bill that specifically targeted doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects, engineers and so forth. As the authors note (economists, Nikolaos Artavanis, Adair Morse and Margarita Tsoutsoura), these are precisely the groups evading the most taxes (largely because they receive much of their income in bribes). But the crackdown bill failed — possibly because, as the authors discover, these are the professions best represented within the Greek parliament.”
Wrote WaPo:
“But Greek banks have very solid estimates for how much income people are actually raking in — the banks need this info to make loans or to issue mortgages.
“Comparing bank data with government data, the authors found that the true income of the average Greek person is about 1.92 times larger than what's actually reported to the government. In 2009, that shrunk the tax base by about $34 billion. Assuming that money was taxed at a 40 percent rate, that's 31 percent of the country's budget deficit in 2009 right there.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/09/how-greek-tax-evasion-sunk-the-global-economy/
Must be true, it's on some WaPo blog.
In this case, The Washington Post is referencing The Wall Street Journal's Justin Lahart who "points to a new paper (pdf) by three economists who estimate that the size of Greek tax evasion accounted for roughly half the country's budget shortfall in 2008 and one-third in 2009.
People historically allow up to %18-20 of their income to be redistributed, it is the hardwired amount of tribal charity they will part with. After that, all bets are off and people resist passively or actively just a matter of time.. I love my kids more than I love yours, simple..