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This is beyond me. GaussianCopula posted:Funny video that was linked in the UKMT thread https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGvZil0qWPg As is GC citing half a source and dismissing the other half of it.
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Jul 1, 2016 16:53
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| # ? May 25, 2024 00:08 |
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At this very moment Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is making a state visit to Finland. What do you fellow Europeans think about this?
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Jul 1, 2016 16:53
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GaussianCopula posted:Funny video that was linked in the UKMT thread Actually, It's saying that Northern Europe hosed Greece for no practical reason at all, but I know this concept is difficult for you to accept so I will forgive you.
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Jul 1, 2016 16:56
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doverhog posted:What do you fellow Europeans think about this? RIP Finland
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Jul 1, 2016 16:57
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Kurtofan posted:that seems like a not good idea. if it requires a constitutional amendment then he knows that the chances of it happening are next to zero, but saying he supports it probably improves his image with the morose retirees who actually bother to vote.
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Jul 1, 2016 17:22
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The only acceptable term to refer to a Czech exit from the EU/NATO/the planet Earth is #Czechout, offenders will face sanctions.
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Jul 1, 2016 17:23
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doverhog posted:At this very moment Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is making a state visit to Finland. What do you fellow Europeans think about this? Whack him. Frame Brexiters.
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Jul 1, 2016 17:35
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Peter Ramsauer, CSU MP and former minister of transport, was bumped by a photographer during Sigmar Gabriel's state visit to Greece and told them "do not touch me, filthy Greek". Looking Ramsauer up he seems to have a generally big record as a lovely nationalist. If he hates it, why is he even here.
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Jul 1, 2016 17:49
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Friendly Humour posted:Actually, It's saying that Northern Europe hosed Greece for no practical reason at all, but I know this concept is difficult for you to accept so I will forgive you. He points out that Greece is basically a kleptocracy but wants the Northern states to just pony up the money for it to continue? Sorry but that makes no sense to me on any level. YF-23 posted:Peter Ramsauer, CSU MP and former minister of transport, was bumped by a photographer during Sigmar Gabriel's state visit to Greece and told them "do not touch me, filthy Greek". Looking Ramsauer up he seems to have a generally big record as a lovely nationalist. If he hates it, why is he even here. Is there actual evidence of this?
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Jul 1, 2016 18:04
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Cat Mattress posted:Isn't Miloš Zeman a devout Putinist? Miloš Zeman is primarily still salty about the time his old party didn't support him in his bid for presidency over ten years ago, and about his party friends being gradually sidelined after he had retired from being the PM in the early 2000s. So he has used his success in the last presidential election as an opportunity to make everybody's life worse by actively undermining the government and national interests in general. He was actually pretty pro-American before he turned into a sad old man, he even supported the Iraq war. Now he's just doing whatever satisfies his contrarian ego.
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Jul 1, 2016 18:12
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GaussianCopula posted:He points out that Greece is basically a kleptocracy but wants the Northern states to just pony up the money for it to continue? Sorry but that makes no sense to me on any level. If you ignore everything else he says, then yeah that's what he says. Congratulations, you have mastered selective reading! I'm so proud of you son!
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Jul 1, 2016 18:13
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YF-23 posted:The only acceptable term to refer to a Czech exit from the EU/NATO/the planet Earth is #Czechout, offenders will face sanctions. Kurva
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Jul 1, 2016 18:14
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GaussianCopula posted:Is there actual evidence of this? The article claims Gabriel's personal photographer confirmed it and that apologies have been issued. I haven't found a decent English article on it yet, but I'm sure that there's got to be stuff floating on the German online press by now.
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Jul 1, 2016 18:19
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Friendly Humour posted:Actually, It's saying that Northern Europe hosed Greece for no practical reason at all, but I know this concept is difficult for you to accept so I will forgive you. Actually, I thought the guy they were interviewing had a really good point that goes beyond Greece. A lot of politicians are making waves about "reforming the economy" or "creating jobs" but I really don't see any concerted effort around a core plan for the national economic identity. Let's take Greece as the first example: from what was said in the interview and from what I've read elsewhere, Greece hasn't taken any action to try and create for itself a sustainable system where they offer something or have some kind of primary money-maker. Right now Greece is known for shipping, tourism, and some specific agricultural exports (yogurt, olives, cheese?). However, Greece isn't really self-sufficient on a meaningful scale, if I recall correctly. One of the key arguments against leaving the Eurozone was because Greece imports most of its food and medicine, which would make the transition to the drachma a death blow to the country. However, what steps has Greece done to maybe bolster domestic agriculture? Does any of the parties in Greece have a plan forward for defining what economic niche Greece wants to occupy and grow into? All I've really heard is "funding more public services," but that's not really building an economic identity. The US kind of has this same problem, though its more focused on what politicians are promising. Trump talks big about "bringing manufacturing jobs back," but not much in the way for how to make it economically viable. Granted, he's the first one to even say that much, because most people just say "create jobs" without mentioning that most jobs created lately have been service sector jobs, which while valuable, cannot be the foundation of an entire economic order. You only need so many baristas and insurance salesmen. The Bahamas are an example of a country that does know what it is and wants to be. It intentionally markets itself as a tourist paradise to leverage it's resources and location. It identified an economic niche it could fill and worked to attain it. Granted, smaller countries are a bit more simplistic in their economic model, but Germany is another example where they try to corner the engineering and high-end manufacturing niche. The UK is going to have to have this conversation with itself, as the financial industry is probably going to dry up with the Brexit, and they're going to need something to replace that hole in the economy. I guess in summary, I wish more people would think like the economist in that video and go beyond merely saying "we'll make jobs." Great, what jobs exactly, and how will it fit with where we are, and where we want to be?
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Jul 1, 2016 18:24
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The state investing in a sector of the economy means, in the end, spending money in one way or another, and guess what, Greece isn't allowed to do that under the framework of the memorandum. It has the tourism niché going for itself, and again, guess what, even if it wanted to boost that the institutions wouldn't allow it, their VAT demands on tourism and the islands run 100% contrary to that.
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Jul 1, 2016 18:46
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Griffen posted:Actually, I thought the guy they were interviewing had a really good point that goes beyond Greece. A lot of politicians are making waves about "reforming the economy" or "creating jobs" but I really don't see any concerted effort around a core plan for the national economic identity. Let's take Greece as the first example: from what was said in the interview and from what I've read elsewhere, Greece hasn't taken any action to try and create for itself a sustainable system where they offer something or have some kind of primary money-maker. Right now Greece is known for shipping, tourism, and some specific agricultural exports (yogurt, olives, cheese?). However, Greece isn't really self-sufficient on a meaningful scale, if I recall correctly. One of the key arguments against leaving the Eurozone was because Greece imports most of its food and medicine, which would make the transition to the drachma a death blow to the country. However, what steps has Greece done to maybe bolster domestic agriculture? Does any of the parties in Greece have a plan forward for defining what economic niche Greece wants to occupy and grow into? All I've really heard is "funding more public services," but that's not really building an economic identity. He was, and I heartily recommend reading up him more, he's a really good and funny writer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NaJKdGxows As for Greece, well no nation is self-sufficient and it's really stupid to even measure up countries on that metric in a globalized world. It's not the 1930's anymore. And yeah, that's the whole crux of the issue with the centrist political promise to "create jobs, put poiple to work now", it's a mask to cover up the fact that all the old jobs that people used to work have been exported to the industrializing countries because it's just so much cheaper to make stuff there and ship it back to the centres of consumption. Or in the case of Germany, to keep down inflation and interest rates that'll allow them to sell cheap cars to the rest of the world at the cost of loving up those parts of the eurozone that aren't export focused economies. Like Greece, Spain and Italy got hosed after 2008 while German economy just grew and grew, while denying them the normal means of adjusting to rising lending costs by increasing inflation and adjusting exchange rates. Which Gaussiancupola surprisingly thinks is an ok plan that is totally not going to result in the breakup of the EU. Those lazy southerners are after all, on their own and not members of any wider political project that might have the responsibility to clean up its own fuckups. I was saying in the beginning of this crisis when I actually starped posting here in 2012 that the whole austerity line that was being fed to the furious public that this was all the Greeks fault and we had to bail them out, was total bullshit. The Greek political class utterly hosed up yes, and they should be loving hanged, but it wasn't the Greeks who decided that the principal receivers of Greek bailout money would be European banks. They didn't so much get "money to keep the party going" as they got to be the scapegoats for the Great European Bank Bailout project, while getting just enough for themselves to keep the country on the brink of starvation.
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Jul 1, 2016 18:55
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Friendly Humour posted:Actually, It's saying that Northern Europe hosed Greece for no practical reason at all, but I know this concept is difficult for you to accept so I will forgive you. loving feels good?
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Jul 1, 2016 18:55
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Cat Mattress posted:RIP Finland Yeah, RIP Unless paavo saves us ofc.
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Jul 1, 2016 18:56
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YF-23 posted:The state investing in a sector of the economy means, in the end, spending money in one way or another, and guess what, Greece isn't allowed to do that under the framework of the memorandum. It has the tourism niché going for itself, and again, guess what, even if it wanted to boost that the institutions wouldn't allow it, their VAT demands on tourism and the islands run 100% contrary to that. You have a very one dimensional view of the problem. Greece does not have the money for additional investment right now, but they can relocate money from inefficient public companies (e.g. electricity sector workers would not have needed that raise) to support their new business plan, e.g. more tourism. If Syriza had proven in the first 5 month of their reign that they were actually able to save money by reducing the kleptocracy, they would not have had to raise taxes to the degree they are doing now. But SYRIZA prefers raising taxes to reducing the kleptocracy so Greece will stay hosed.
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Jul 1, 2016 18:57
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I think Blyth is missing a key issue at stake there at the end there, Greece is far from the only economy (especially a upper-middle income country) to actually have an issue with finding a workable economic model. Ireland (remember the Celtic tiger?) tried housing construction , that didn't work out so well. Brazil tried a commodity export boom, and that busted. Russia relied on oil and that busted as well. If anything the heyday for all three economies were the 2000s, and since that point it has been tougher for them to get the type of growth they had hoped for. Hell, even Italy with its financial elite in Milan is still struggling as well. In all honesty, Greece's big industry's are all very cyclical as well (especially Tourism) and they can't really do much if a recession hits Europe and they are back where they came from. Greece is a dysfunctional state but that only means it is the tip of the spear.
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Jul 1, 2016 19:16
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GaussianCopula posted:But SYRIZA prefers raising taxes to reducing the kleptocracy so Greece will stay hosed. Seeing how Greece can't even collect those taxes, does the increase even matter?
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Jul 1, 2016 19:23
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GaussianCopula posted:You have a very one dimensional view of the problem. Greece does not have the money for additional investment right now, but they can relocate money from inefficient public companies (e.g. electricity sector workers would not have needed that raise) to support their new business plan, e.g. more tourism. If Syriza had proven in the first 5 month of their reign that they were actually able to save money by reducing the kleptocracy, they would not have had to raise taxes to the degree they are doing now. http://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2016/04/exclusive-yanis-varoufakis-reveals-how-european-powers-troika-abolished-greek-anti-tax-evasion-unit/ Yanis Varoufakis posted:So from day one, I put together, I convened a working group for homing in on the major tax evaders, yeah? So I put together two teams within the ministry, one from the equivalent of the IRS and the other one from IT, because you’ve got to realize that through austerity cuts and so on we didn’t even have the personnel to go after the tax evaders in the way that it would happen here in the United States. So the way we did it was I leaned very, very heavily upon the banks to get real-time data of all transactions within the country and without the country for the last 15, 20 years. That took two, three months, and a lot of leaning on bankers to do it, but we got it. And then it was—I thought it was a simple matter of creating an algorithmic system, software, that would compare all the transactions from tax file number to tax file number with tax returns. I had a lot of resistance from the Greek IRS, which I didn’t control—not because it’s independent, but because it was answerable directly to the Troika, our lenders. And in any case, I banged a few heads, put together this working group. Which is interesting. I'm a bit surprised it hasn't been discussed any further. Now why on Earth would the Troika oppose the plans to combat tax evasion? lollontee fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 19:24
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Friendly Humour posted:Which is interesting. I'm a bit surprised it hasn't been discussed any further. Now why on Earth would the Troika oppose the plans to combat tax evasion? Not gonna believe one word of Varoufakis without 3rd party confirmation and if you believe that the Troika, and by proxy Wolfgang Schäuble, are protecting tax evaders I really can't help you.
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Jul 1, 2016 19:38
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GaussianCopula posted:Not gonna believe one word of Varoufakis without 3rd party confirmation and if you believe that the Troika, and by proxy Wolfgang Schäuble, are protecting tax evaders I really can't help you. Heh. Well I'm sure that there's plenty of evidence provided by the Troika that it didn't happen. It is after all, a rather serious allegation which I'm sure they've thoroughly disproven.
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Jul 1, 2016 19:40
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Just wanted to chime in and ask a really big favour of all of you: Please don't destroy Europe, thanks in advance. No but seriously, it seems like all the former powerhouses are on a slow but steady decline. I mean, it's still not all that bad, but if it keeps going like this, I fear for the next 20 years or so.
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Jul 1, 2016 19:40
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Europe is loving over. Oh well, time for round three!
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Jul 1, 2016 19:41
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Friendly Humour posted:Heh. Well I'm sure that there's plenty of evidence provided by the Troika that it didn't happen. It is after all, a rather serious allegation which I'm sure they've thoroughly disproven. He gathered a wirking group, leant on all domestic and non-domestic banks who then gave up 30 years if financial data (I would hope all in the same neat format instead of half of it being in paper files and the rest being from 50 different antiquated IT systems) after which a simple algorithm compared it to the IRS data. All in the space of a few months. How dumb do you have to be to believe that bullshit? Or any of the other bullshit that narcisistic psycho has been spouting.
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Jul 1, 2016 19:46
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Lagotto posted:He gathered a wirking group, leant on all domestic and non-domestic banks who then gave up 30 years if financial data (I would hope all in the same neat format instead of half of it being in paper files and the rest being from 50 different antiquated IT systems)which a simple algorithm compared it to the IRS data. All in the space of a few months. Well go on then, what's the unreasonable part?
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Jul 1, 2016 19:47
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Friendly Humour posted:Well go on then, what's the unreasonable part? When you are stuck in the loon house all crazy seems normal. Good luck to you.
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Jul 1, 2016 19:50
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Lagotto posted:When you are stuck in the loon house all crazy seems normal. Good luck to you. Thanks! We can continue this discussion when you feel up to it!
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Jul 1, 2016 19:50
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Friendly Humour posted:Well go on then, what's the unreasonable part?
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Jul 1, 2016 19:56
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Well, it sounds like a logistical nightmare just gathering the data, and processing it would probably be a major undertaking too. Or maybe I'm just not really ready to believe they could do this with a "working group" when you see how much entire ministries can gently caress up tax collection in much more functional countries. Well, in the same text Varoufakis said it wasn't finished, and was planned to finish in October. The point isn't if they could actually do it in the actual timeframe, maybe if the thing kept going they could've done it, maybe they'd have needed another year to do it. That's not the point, at all.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:02
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Well, it sounds like a logistical nightmare just gathering the data, and processing it would probably be a major undertaking too. Or maybe I'm just not really ready to believe they could do this with a "working group" when you see how much entire ministries can gently caress up tax collection in much more functional countries. That's not really a reason though, and regardless the whole point was that the Troika abolished the working group the minute Varoufakis left office. Besides that, there's really no reason to assume he's lying. Unless of course you happen to hate the man, in which case I can't really help you.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:02
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Friendly Humour posted:That's not really a reason though, and regardless the whole point was that the Troika abolished the working group the minute Varoufakis left office. Besides that, there's really no reason to assume he's lying. Unless of course you happen to hate the man, in which case I can't really help you. Considering what the TROIKA and Germany are trying to pull on Portugal it doesn't sound really all that far fetched.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:06
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YF-23 posted:Well, in the same text Varoufakis said it wasn't finished, and was planned to finish in October. The point isn't if they could actually do it in the actual timeframe, maybe if the thing kept going they could've done it, maybe they'd have needed another year to do it. That's not the point, at all. That said, even if he paints a rosier picture than is warranted by the facts, and their case wasn't as solid as it appears from the quote, I wouldn't doubt at all that the Troika would attempt to shut it down on sheer principle.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:12
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Let's assume that Varoufakis would be able to create an automated tax collection service in just 8 month, of which he spent 2-3 leaning on the banks to give him access to the data in the first place. Why would the Troika want to protect the rich Greeks? What even remotely believable motive should they have to reduce the amount of taxes the Greek state collects?
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Jul 1, 2016 20:13
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The quote has them find half a million major tax evaders in a four month period, with a promise of more detailed findings five months later. That just sounds really loving efficient to me, what with them having to gather the data first too. If anyone in Europe cared they could be the core of a European tax agency. It's actually really easy to do if you abolish bank secrecy. As for data collection and entry, I got no idea and I doubt any of the contrarian posters here have either. But if I was running a bank completely reliant on the government for keeping afloat and a marxist government minister comes to and says 'we want your data by the end of the month or we're going to gently caress you up bad', I would have a real hard time finding the spine to stand up to him. Especially since I would be a invertabrate.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:17
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GaussianCopula posted:Let's assume that Varoufakis would be able to create an automated tax collection service in just 8 month, of which he spent 2-3 leaning on the banks to give him access to the data in the first place. Why would the Troika want to protect the rich Greeks? What even remotely believable motive should they have to reduce the amount of taxes the Greek state collects? I could think of several, but they all operate on the assumption that the Troika wasn't in reality interested in reforming the Greek state as it was in squezing it. Which of course would be an impossibility, right? Heh.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:19
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GaussianCopula posted:Let's assume that Varoufakis would be able to create an automated tax collection service in just 8 month, of which he spent 2-3 leaning on the banks to give him access to the data in the first place. Why would the Troika want to protect the rich Greeks? What even remotely believable motive should they have to reduce the amount of taxes the Greek state collects? They stay in control.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:20
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| # ? May 25, 2024 00:08 |
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GaussianCopula posted:Let's assume that Varoufakis would be able to create an automated tax collection service in just 8 month, of which he spent 2-3 leaning on the banks to give him access to the data in the first place. Why would the Troika want to protect the rich Greeks? What even remotely believable motive should they have to reduce the amount of taxes the Greek state collects? Friendly Humour posted:It's actually really easy to do if you abolish bank secrecy. As for data collection and entry, I got no idea and I doubt any of the contrarian posters here have either. But if I was running a bank completely reliant on the government for keeping afloat and a marxist government minister comes to and says 'we want your data by the end of the month or we're going to gently caress you up bad', I would have a real hard time finding the spine to stand up to him. Especially since I would be a invertabrate.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:23
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