30
Sep
2011
Report From Greece
Matthew Nakas is a fan of the Austrians who was at the recent conference in Vienna. Then he visited his family in Greece. He sent me this email:
I am in Greece right now and things are really interesting to say the least. This nation is tense and at some point there will be a breaking point where either the existing government will collapse or there will be massive riots or both. The government just imposed a new tax on the home owners which is a $10.00 tax per square meter. My friends for example are paying an extra 3,000 euro. This comes on top of the many additional taxes they are already paying!! This should be an object lesson for the world if they care to take notes.
This whole thing is going to give new meaning to the phrase, “doing it Greek style.”
On that point, this BBC article features a picture of “Greeks burn[ing] tax notices outside a tax office in Thessaloniki on Friday.”
On a serious note, does your Greek connection have anything to say about Greeks living well beyond their means?
I read something earlier this week. Apparently, some people are not registering their addresses since registration makes it harder to avoid property taxes. So the government tried to use electricity usage to find “occupied properties.” A few neighborhoods responded by setting up their own distribution centers, where only one person in the area connects to power company lines. Local power lines are then used to distribute the electricity from there to other neighborhood houses.
God bless Greece, and the Greek people.
I keep hearing, “You need government, you depend on government for electricity and everything you have.”
The Greek government is doing it’s best to teach everyone why they don’t need government to do everything for them.
God bless a bunch of dead-beats? These are the people libertarians are forced to look to for acts of heroism?
I live in Greece too.
My new property tax hasn’t arrived in the post as yet, but I’m estimating it to be in the region of around 2,500 euros, at about 16 euros per sqm. It’s so sad it’s almost funny. If I pay this, which I have no intention of doing, I can rightly kiss good bye to both my summer & Christmas holidays. What’s more, few in Greece really have any intention of paying this tax, and as we know how great the Greek government is at collecting taxes, the Trioka should think twice before adding these tax revenues into the 2011 & 2012 budgets.
I think the large majority of the population are now willing to default on this debt as these taxes are now percieved as payments directly to foreign bankers. The population is simply fed up of this slow death now and is rightly coming round to the idea that if hard times have to be sufferred then lets get it done quickly. We’ve had about 2 years of this now, and the thought of contraction going on for another 5 or even 10 years is unbearable. Social structures are crumbling, riots and strikes are almost constant and the unemployment in the country is sky rocketing. The kids just went back to school a few weeks ago to find the state hadn’t even bought them books, but had instead issued CD’s to all high school students.
I doubt many have any idea the pain a default will cause, but I for one would be willing to give up my summer and winter holidays and more, even though I never took one bloody cent from the state or its kleptomaniac politicians, to get the country back on the right path. I am not willing to pay this tax however to keep bankers in Greece, France & Germany in the black!!!!
The country still seems very undecided as to whether they should leave the Euro, but I suppose we’ll know soon enough.
You’re willing to give up your summer and winter holidays? Wow, you’re a real hard-ass, exactly the kind of people American libertarians can count on. Why don’t you give up buggery next?