I have a confession to make. I’m enjoying the Greece debacle and I like the Greek people.
Sure, there are lots of moochers in Greece. And yes, the government is insanely wasteful, even to the point of subsidizing pedophiles and requiring stool samples from folks applying to set up online companies.
But at least there’s high entertainment value, such as the altercation in this video between one of the national socialists in the Golden Dawn party and a regular socialist from the Syriza party and one of the international socialists from the Communist party.
Of course, I hope that all of these strains of socialism lose at the polls, just as I hope that the Keynesians and tax-increasers fight each other to the death in the rest of Europe.
Until that point, though, I want more entertainment.
I also have a certain fondness for the Greeks because of their disdain for the tax authorities. These people have an amazing expertise when it comes to not paying taxes (their Italian and Irish counterparts also seem less than enthused about giving more money to government).
To be sure, I suspect most of them are motivated by getting something for nothing rather than libertarian principles. But even if they’re dodging taxes for the wrong reasons, these anecdotes from the New York Times are quite amusing.
An essential element of Greece’s recovery plan has been to collect more taxes from a population that has long engaged in tax avoidance. The government is owed 45 billion euros in back taxes, tax officials in Athens said, only a fraction of which will ever be recovered. To understand the difficulty, just talk to Nikos Maitos, a longtime official in Greece’s financial crimes investigation unit. When he and a team of inspectors recently prowled the recession-hit island of Naxos for tax evaders, a local radio station broadcast his license plate number to warn residents. …“After two and a half years of austerity, it’s really a difficult time to bring in revenue,” said Harry Theoharis, a senior official in the Greek Finance Ministry who helps oversee the country’s tax payment system. “You can’t keep flogging a dead horse.” …Income expected from a higher, 23 percent value-added tax required by the bailout agreement has fallen short by around 800 million euros in the first four months of 2012. That is partly because cash-short businesses that were once law-abiding have started hiding money to stay afloat, tax officials said. …the government started enforcing a 1995 law that gives them access to bank accounts of suspected tax evaders. But Nikos Lekkas, a top official at the financial crimes agency where Mr. Maitos works, said Greek banks had obstructed nearly 5,000 requests for account data since 2010. “The banks delay sending the information for 8 to 12 months,” he said. “And when they do, they send huge stacks of documents to make it confusing. By the time we can follow up, much of the money has already fled.” …During a surveillance trip on the resort island of Santorini, Mr. Maitos said he and two colleagues observed a gas station owner insisting on cash-only transactions to avoid declaring taxes. When confronted, the man lashed at them with a bullwhip while cursing the state for taking his money.
Pretty impressive. Not only are taxpayers getting help from radio stations and banks, but they even use bullwhips to defend themselves.
It’s also worth noting that the “flogging a dead horse” comment and the shortfall in VAT receipts are further evidence for the Laffer Curve.
But I don’t want to focus too much on policy in this post. I just want to enjoy the spectacle. In later posts, we’ll look to see whether American statists have learned any lessons about reforming entitlements so we avoid a future Greek-style fiscal crisis in America.
[…] naturally wondered about the situation, expecting that it was radical statists or some of the crazies from Golden Dawn. But the cab driver explained that it was […]
constantly i used to read smaller articles or reviews which as well clear
their motive, and that is also happening with this piece of
writing which I am reading here.
Im sure frustration is think enough in Greece to start a full Ninja disco with strobe light and throwing stars
Reblogged this on Selion Management.
Reblogged this on Talon's Point.
While it’s tempting to laugh at this incident… fistfights in parliaments of Mediterranean (and some non-Mediterranean) counties is nothing new. Fights between Nazis and Communists are also nothing new… Hitler was rallied on by people who thought it’s quite entertaining that he was beating up Commies.
I’m sorry to emote all over your blog, but this fills me with sadness. They haven’t been honestly governed in quite some time. The gulf of the differences between what was promised, what they’re willing to pay for as citizens and what has been delivered is too great.
TINSTAAFL
Statists inevitably come into mortal conflict. There is no room for even just two statist ideologies having so much control over individuals at the same time.
Keep in mind that Greece invented democracy, but also invented Ostracism ie the “whom are the pitchforks going to impale today” environment.
Greece is now living through the middle chapters of the Gospel of Collectivism – also known as the book of HopNChange. Hope that someone else, someone more intelligent, someone more competent, or plainly someone harder working will leave his family and life of leisure every morning to contribute to my maintaining the priviledged western standard of living I’ve been accustomed to. The Hope lives on, the decline continues.
Greece is once again at the vanguard of western civilization – this time into decline.
Lib-progs don’t learn from history or from example. They want the world to work the way they want, even if it never does. They have excellent intentions. Road to hell.