EU/Greek Economic crisis. Death threaths, buried scandals and the corrupted democratic proccess.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

I've been an avid supporter of the view that there are many things going on behind the scenes when it comes to money and political power.

Naturally I am not in a position and I will likely never be, as with most if not all of us here, to know exactly what is going on.

I was also a supporter of the view point that the largest part of this crisis has nothing to do with the majority of poor people trying to scrape a living by not paying all their taxes, or by other means.

Of course I do not call low level corruption as a non-issue. It is an issue but I don't think it has the weight to bring down the economy of the EU.

I believe what has happened and what is happening is a war between huge funds over control and political support.

I recently read an article on the Financial times about Christine Lagarde, which I will use as my introductory source.

You can read it here : http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4c506...#ixzz3D810gOU7

Somewhere buried within this large article, this specific quote of hers,

Greece, though, is another matter: in the past year Lagarde has loudly criticised the failure of rich Greeks to pay their taxes properly. “I better not say too much because, you know, when I have talked about Greece and its taxes before, I got death threats and we had to increase security,” she mutters. “But is the shipping industry really paying its taxes? Are others? I don’t think so.”

This reinforced by mainly instinct-based belief that the rich and powerful will do anything to maintain riches and control and avoid the law in ways that a poor person can only dream of.

This is connected with the famous case, at least in Greece, of the "Lagarde List", information about which you can find here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagarde_list.

A TL;DR version of the case of this list is :

In October 2010, Lagarde sent a list of 1,991 names to Papakonstantinou^[5] through diplomatic channels in the form of an unlabelled CD containing spreadsheets for the roughly 2,000 accounts now known in Greece as the "Lagarde list".^[3] Papakonstantinou later told a parliamentary inquiry that he "handed all the files to the new head of the tax police" - the Greece's Financial and Economic Crime Unit (SDOE) - "and asked him to proceed with a full investigation". However, the tax authorities chose not to proceed and Papakonstantinou left office in mid-2011,^[3] and the CD went missing. Papakonstantinou’s successor, Evangelos Venizelos, now the current head of the PASOK Socialists, produced a copy on a memory stick and began a limited investigation as to whether any of those listed had evaded taxes. The investigation only looked at around ten politicians and no legal action was taken. It was only when the current Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras heard about the lost information, and wanted to ask Paris for a copy, that Venizelos supposedly remembered the USB stick in the drawer of his secretary.^[6]
Earlier, in October 2012, the former defence ministry official Yiannis Sbokos was arrested on corruption charges, regarding a defence ministry bribery and money-laundering scandal. The next day Leonidas Tzanis, a former deputy interior minister (1999-2001), was found dead in the basement of his home, where he had apparently hanged himself. Vlassis Kambouroglou, another businessman (and former managing director of Drumilan International, a company involved in the sale of a Russian-made TOR-M1 missile system to Greece) accused of involvement in the scandal was found dead in a Jakarta hotel room. He was the second high-ranking Greek figure to die in mysterious circumstances within five days. Both Tzanis and Kambouroglou were on the Lagarde List.^[7]

Now if you take into account the older scandal case which of course was promptly buried away from the spotlight.

The so called assasination attempt against Karamanlis.

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013...ne-tap-linked/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8EE7AP20120314

Allegedly this happened to convince him to step down and cancel the oil-pipeline deal with Russia which would have been very lucrative for Greece.

His government was in power before Papandreou won the elections with false promises that there is plenty of money and that we don't need to introduce more taxes and economic cuts. Something which Karamanlis warned the people is untrue before stepping down.

Papandreou went on to cancel the deal with thea Russians and pursue a complete surrender to the EU agenda.

Then Strauss Khan came out and said,

I had spoken with Papandreou in 2009 about a memorandum

http://en.protothema.gr/strauss-kahn...-a-memorandum/

A few days later as we all know Strauss Khan was arrested charged and stripped of office.



What I see here is a chain of events, which if one follows can see a pattern of buried scandals and death threats against anyone who is against decisions that would hurt the rich, promoting instead decisions that hurt the poor and any attempt to reach out economically to other sources of income, such as the lucrative but cancelled pipeline deal with the Russians.


What reinforces my opinion that it's not as simple as Greeks are corrupted that so many seem to follow. I don't believe that Greek rich people could pull of death threats and assasination attempts against a Prime Minister and the head of the IMF and possibly many others without outside help.

Which brings me to the conclusion that there is so much going on behind the scenes for the sakes of power and maintaining a status quo that the democratic proccess seems just a facade to convince the average voter that he has a peaceful choice.



P.S: Keep it civil.

[Stavroforos]

For me this just reinforces the fact that the whole "Greeks evade their taxes" was another part of the Western smear campaign against Greeks, which was strongly utilized by some people especially on this forum to foster an anti-Greek environment by calling other members tax evaders, traitors, criminals, etc., when it turns out that we're largely vindicated for claiming from the beginning that the major losses which come from tax evasion is from the rich and powerful.

[wulfgar610]

I've been an avid supporter of the view that there are many things going on behind the scenes when it comes to money and political power.

I'm not sure about the conspiracy theories concerned with aliens from outer space. But I've seen people will conspire in many ways to obtain money, so these could have credence. Greece's debt though is primarily Greece's responsibility. The Greek government borrowed heavily. This enriched certain parties in Greece, they did it with the complicity of international finance who get their cut. Then they leave the bill at the taxpayers door. Simple fact is that Greece's wealth per capita is not in the same league as Western Europe, yet there are those in Greece who figure their wealth should be on par with Germans.
There is a conspiracy in America to bring the EU and the Euro down by attacking the weakest link, Greece. Basically that failed, so they moved on to starting the conflict in Ukraine.
Of the world's fiat currencies, the Euro alone is the only viable threat to the status of the USD.

[Akhenaton]

Are you refering to the Burgas-Alexandroupouli pipeline? This line was planned to bring oil from Russia through Burgas to Greece and would have been very profitable for greek companies, with "Helpe-Thraki A.E owning 23.5% and Hellenic Republic owning 1%

Source

However, after Karamanlis had to leave office, Papandreou cancelled the deal immediatley. It is very good that you bring this topic up, because as you said yourself, there is more going on behind the curtains. In the "ISIL War in Iraq and Syria" thread I explained with some good founded arguments in post #190, how this conflict is pretty much about pipelines.

Back to Greece, the oil which is supposed to come from Qatar to Turkey, is planned to go then throug the "Trans Adriatic Pipeline", meaning Greece, Albania and Italy to Europe. Guess who isn´t a shareholder this time around...
They are as followed

BP (UK) 20%
SOCAR(Aserbaidschan) 20%
Statoil(Norway) 20%
Fluxys(Belgium) 16%
Total (France) 10%
E.ON Ruhrgas (Germany) 9%
Axpo Holding (Swiss) 5%

Source ,German but the table is pretty self explanatory.

So, as usual, Greece was denied a chance to dictate it´s own policies and a whole financial crisis and flame war was started to make sure, that we would shut up about it. The economy crumbled, people lost their jobs, an old men committed suicide on the syntagma square and the right wing got much more political influence, but the big guys got what they wanted, so it was probably worth it. /sarcasm

[Stavroforos]

Remember how the Americans were caught to be bugging the Prime Minister's calls? That was fun, it created such international outrage...

[Akhenaton]

Could you be a bit more specific? i can´t remember it right now...

[Stavroforos]

I'm not sure if you're Greek, but the sources are in Greek, so hah.

http://www.enet.gr/?i=news.el.article&id=354746

http://www.tovima.gr/politics/article/?aid=505738

[Akhenaton]

Oh yeah, I´m greek and speak it as well, no prob

I´m not surprised that Karamanlis phone was bugged, I mean, even Mother Merkels phone was spied upon by american agencies.

But what is this?

Αναφορά για την υπόθεση συνέταξε το 2009 η ΕΥΠ, η οποία επισήμαινε πως οι ρωσικές μυστικές υπηρεσίες φέρονταν να υποστηρίζουν ότι είχαν εντοπίσει ομάδα 20 ατόμων, τα οποία παρακολουθούσαν τον Κώστα Καραμανλή την περίοδο 2006-2008. Οι ίδιες πηγές φέρονταν να κάνουν λόγο για "οργανωμένο σχέδιο δολοφονίας" του τότε πρωθυπουργού.

Who were those 20 men, the Russians found? Did they have agents amidst them who planned the operation?

At least as an european country, we enjoy the privilige of not being thrown immediately into civil war, though I´m sure that if we would have elected SYRYZA as main party in the last elections, such a conflict could have become very real.

[hellheaven1987]

No one loves to pay tax - whether you are Greek, German, Chinese, Mexican or American, live in 5000 BC or 5000 AD. It does puzzle me why no one include this theory into law of human nature yet.

[Thorn777]

^No one?

Ever heard of capital exchange controlls installed by such creatures they call politicians who are supposed to work for the betterment of society? The rich Greeks(among all the other ultra rich) can only do their stints because since 1972 they can easily ping-pong money around the world without the state ever needing to know and ever being able to tax.

They only let the state know they might get their capital abroad if they want something from the state, like subsidies, permits and other goodies. Funny enough they not necessarily plan to put money abroad, just that this blackmailing practice is part of any sound businessplan these days.

Wake up people. Its not about jealousy, but about survival.

[Condottiere 40K]

It's still the electorate who puts them into office, the rich only provide the funding that allows politicians to create the avenues to spread their message(s) and drown out their opponent(s)'.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

Yes, it is the electorate that votes.

However the money flow and apparently death threats make sure only people who will not touch their precious money get financial support.

Good luck winning an election as a poor man if no-one is helping you. The ones who will support the rich get all the money to launch a gigantic campaign against you.

In today's democracy the only way to get a seat in the parliament in the hopes to change something is to join a party, which is without a doubt approached by the "right" people to make sure noone makes it if they are not what they want.

SYRIZA which is getting close to winning the elections and break the 2 party, "party" of the last 40 years in Greece started out as a radical left party.

Their rhetoric was radical, but as they are getting very close to winning, their rhetoric changes to more and more in lines with the old PASOK. The party which was ruling Greece for 40 years.

It's clear as day they were approached by financial interests to... change their rhetoric and they did.

Because it makes no sense otherwise.

If they started gaining support using radical ideas, why on earth would they start changing their ideas just before they win?

......

[Odenat]

I want to ask if there are any economic policy changes at the last few years in Greece ? Did you guys implemented some policies that support production&export ? How the ordinary Greeks are feeling about economy right now ?

[Akrotatos]

I want to ask if there are any economic policy changes at the last few years in Greece ? Did you guys implemented some policies that support production&export ? How the ordinary Greeks are feeling about economy right now ?

In my opinion, the EU kept us afloat to protect their own economy. Now that the banks are secured from a Greek colapse we are artificially kept alive and screwed until GOlden Dawn rises to first party, then they will be able to wash their hands of us (since Greeks are nazis now) without political reprecussions and let the vultures pick off what's left of the formerly known as Greece. Yes, I am somewhat pessimistic.

[alhoon]

Which brings me to the conclusion that there is so much going on behind the scenes for the sakes of power and maintaining a status quo that the democratic proccess seems just a facade to convince the average voter that he has a peaceful choice.

P.S: Keep it civil.

oooor... that there was never a death threat against Karamanlis (or one made by Terrorists; Nuclei of fire, Sect etc) and that Stros Khan was implicated in a scandal because of French politics and Sarkozy's dirty works ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yor...acy_hypothesis ), having nothing to do with Greece and everything to do with challenging Sarkozy in the elections

[Knight of Heaven]

I want to ask if there are any economic policy changes at the last few years in Greece ? Did you guys implemented some policies that support production&export ? How the ordinary Greeks are feeling about economy right now ?

How do you do that? that is substancial not mere political rethoric? when all you do is austerity and squeezing the tax payer? I mean Greece and other countries were forced to have the oposite of growth policies, and you are asking about productivity and exports? And an improvement of the means of production? is this a joke? The nominal GDP went backwards at very least 10 years if not more in Portugal, and you are asking about productivity? Given the strong and protected competition of the northen countries? thats quite the tall order given the setting we are in. The only one that was capable of dishing it out was and is Ireland due to their strong connection with Canada, and US.
I agree with Akrotatos, everything is worse, and the tendency is to get worse.
And the rest of the EU countries is not doing bright either... plus the social-economic factor is taking its toll, and it will continue to do so.
Last european elections were self evident of alot of disbelief of their national polititians and the european project.

As economies go Both Greeks and Portugal they are alot worse, debts are bigger, and deficits are still uncontroled. The future does not seem bright. As the comon person sees it, the most glaring issue is the youth unemployment, that in some cases reach 60%, i wonder what will happen to all this people when they begin to age.
Its amazing Portugal only begun to have issues with the deficit when the euro was implemented.

Besides at least here in Portugal most people think that it will be 20 or so more years like this, under the thumb of a certain supervision.
Real economic growth and productivity, happens with investement, and that is allmost non existent in the grand scheme of things.
Europe is walking into a dangerous political-social situation, because of all this, amoung other modern issues. Time will tell obviously, but everything is set to implode sooner or later, its not only golden dawn, its not only greece, its France is Hungary, all over europe people are begining to shift from the mainstream parties.

[Stavroforos]

I want to ask if there are any economic policy changes at the last few years in Greece ? Did you guys implemented some policies that support production&export ? How the ordinary Greeks are feeling about economy right now ?

Sure, there have been a lot of reforms, and ideally there will be many more to come. The problem is that the crisis wasn't caused just by one factor, and that many of the factors that played a role in forming the crisis will still be there. Some of the problems come from Greeks themselves, since we're still not Westernized yet and we still lack a proper education in how a normal Western country should function (this has many aspects to it which are too many to go into). Then there's the fact that those who have the large sums of money who tax evade will continue to tax evade, the banks will continue to be out of our control, and our politicians will still be more answerable to bankers, lenders, and foreign leaders than they are to the Greek people. I don't know if we'll have a crisis as bad as this one sometime soon, but Greece has suffered a catastrophic blow from which it won't likely recover from.

[alhoon]

Greece dealt itself several blows that brought it to this situation: In 1981 that we started the borrowing-madness, in 1991 when we started crippling profitable national industries so we could privatize them, in 2001 when we started cooking the books, in 2009 with the "Λεφτά υπάρχουν" are some of the important ones.

We elected the same people for 35 years. Those people eventually felt entitled to rule whatever they did and it devolved as the two ruling cliques and the whole thing was whose clique would top the other in the elections.
And we accepted that. The going words before 2012 were "And vote for whom? It'll be either PASOK or ND, voting anything else is a wasted vote". And then suddenly in 2012 we discovered that actually there is a different way than the two-party system and that coalition governments is not a fancy thing of the Europeans.
We could have punished the major parties waaaaaaaaaay before the crisis, but as long as money was coming (even with 10% interest) we were content more or less. And then, they asked us for the money back and we couldn't pay.

[Stavroforos]

Well, who else is there to vote for, realistically?

[Akhenaton]

while the near to 30 year rule of the PASOK Government wasn´t relly beneficial to greece, I can not completely blame the generation who voted for them. It is the same generation, who had lived as young people during the civil war and later under the yoke of the Junta and if you have lived through those turbulent times and someone comes and says: "I promise you stability and a safe job", well I can understand it a bit. This doesn´t excuse what happened, because I think that the drifting of the economy towards tourism, was a terrible choice, since tourism doesn´t promote productivity, only the selling of things you already have, but it does help shed some light on why PASOK was in power for thirty years.