Imperialism does not always necessitate military force. Even former Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso called the an “empire” in 2007. From its beginnings, the EU construed all of its machinations in the spirit of “the charter of the United Nations”, which is a clone of the 1936 USSR “Stalin constitution”.
And James Angelos, from the WSJ? The “there shall be open borders” crowd?
I can’t believe you’re justifying increasing taxation of any kind, especially at draconian levels. There is no corresponding private-sector investment being encouraged in Greece of any kind whatsoever; it seems that the EU is shutting that out.
If every Greek business, industry and private citizen dropped the tax avoidance behavior....they’d have more than enough revenue generated in the country to cover the bulk of their government services/funding. None of this EU involvement or additional loan business would be necessary. Most business and financial analysts tend to agree on that topic. They wouldn’t need new laws, new enforcement, or new ‘force’ to cover the situation.
Go look at Greek trade in the region and how they’ve accomplished a good bit of success over the past couple of decades. Tourism, up until this recent mess, was on booming trend....with Europeans spending cash left and right. The Greek airline industry...while small....was generating profit.
If people just played the legit tax rules they already have on the books...this saga would come to a closure and no EU involvement would be necessary.
Go ask a dozen Greeks who smoke....where they got their pack of smokes. A couple of folks will admit the gas station or grocery, but the bulk will tell you via a non-taxable source, at roughly a Euro per pack....thus avoiding the three or four Euro Greek state tax on each pack of smokes. Booze is the same way, with non-taxed booze easily working itself into Greek pubs and bars.
As for Angelos? He’s authentic Greek-American...speaks the language....and can easily talk to businessmen, bureaucrats, street peddlers, and retired guys at a street cafe. That’s something that you don’t see with the reporters of the London Times or the various German news media sources. There are way too many news reports which are centering strictly on the personalities of the head political party, which doesn’t really lay out the survival problems of the Greek people.
I noticed over the weekend....some business reporters had gone out finally to the upper-class neighborhood of Athens. Things were pretty normal. The BMW dealer was still fairly active and had customers showing up. Obviously, there are two Greek epic stories here....the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. Naturally, this all leads back to tax avoidance.