Quote:
Originally Posted by jyl
But I think the media is missing a big part of the story. The easy media story is that Greece's problem is too many direct and indirect benefits and that cutting spending (austerity) is the sole solution. That is the story that Germany and other Eurozone powers want to tell. The under-told story is that Greece has a revenue collection problem which is at heart a high level corruption problem. In 2009, Greeks concealed EUR28BN of income which is about EUR11BN of tax revenue lost, which is IIRC larger than Greece's budget deficit was at that time. The primary tax evaders are the higher income and highest income Greeks (business owners, professional class). That happens to include much of the Greek parliament.
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I agree, but will add a bit to it. I worked in a Socialist/Communist, Romania. 20+ years after the fall, the hatred/fear of the government was still there. Corruption (especially the police) was endemic. Business kickbacks to government were basically a cost of doing business.
I agree that austerity alone will not fix anything. The regulations, paper work, BS work and bureaucracy all need to be reduced. You can't make people entrepreneurs, but you can make the conditions right for those people to succeed.