There are five key things tied to Greece and it’s ‘mess’.
First, for over 2,500 years....Greece has had a tax issue. Greeks took it personal and a lot of merchants left the area over taxes. Over the past fifty years....Greeks learned tax avoidance. If you find any Greek who makes over $100,000 a year....he practicing some type of avoidance in his daily business. Fair-share in taxation in Greece....is a joke.
Second, once tourism arrived in the 1960s....Greek political folks pressed forward on infrastructure and had thousands of projects being worked....way ahead of the tax schedule. So they borrowed money to pay for the projects. The guys running the tax revenue business and the spending business....never talked together. So they kept out-spending what was coming in.
Third, the socialist government of the past 50 years have promised tons of programs. Each had a cost. No one ever asked if they were ever exceeding their revenue potential. Well...they were.
Fourth, the Olympic Games had a huge cost....arenas, the int’l airport, roads, and the subway system. Well...again, they never had the money.
Fifth, when they came to join into the Euro....they were totally unprepared, but needed the Euro. They faked the books and got entry.
That's what I was looking for.
I thought another cause was also illegal immigration. Not as bad there as Italy but still enough to help drag them down.
This is helpful. Still, I sense the approach of another trainwreck of enforced austerity dressed up as patriotism, and that being called ‘the new normal’
Gee...just like here in the U.S.
The Greeks can not blame Syriza for their troubles. The Syriza party took over just recently, I believe in January. But Greeks have been living beyond their means for decades on borrowed money from Europe.
Greece will be better off declaring bankruptcy, get rid of the loan sharks, and take short term pain for long term gain. Borrowing more money required for bailouts is short term pleasure and long term pain.
They had the best helping them with the fraud, Goldman Sachs.