| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Why did we sign In with the EU in the first place? | |
| Posted by: | Dennis Bailey | |
| Date/Time: | 25/03/19 01:13:00 |
| From what i recall, in 2012 the Greek politicians were referring to tax evasion as a national sport. 24% of their GDP was estimated to be under the tax radar, and that said everyone was involved, rich and poor. When the first loan was given the greeks promised to start paying their taxes, they even promised to real in it's runaway public spending. Once they had the money though Greece, backed by the greek electorate decided to say up yours to the EU requirements of the loan and kept the money, and they did it twice. If someone did that to me i would have walked away. The EU, and i take my hat to them for doing it, came back a third time. This time though we refused to hand the money over until they could prove they were doing something to fix the country wide policy of freeloading off of everyone else. In 2009 31% (€28 billion) of their budget deficit was down to tax evasion. According to the Greek finance minister €28 billion was amassed in swiss banks using 10'000 offshore companies while we threw money at them. In 2017 the Greek think tank DiaNEOsis estimated that between 6% and 9% of their GDP is uncollected taxes, so the carrot and stick approach of the third loan is very much working. |