if we look a bit beyond Greece, at the rest of europe, we quickly see that the "culture of cheating" is a much bigger problem. The EU is losing an estimated sum of 1 trillion euros per year because of "tax avoidance"
Do we see our political leaders going after those legal loopholes? Do we see people boycotting Apple or Amazon to protest against these practices? Do we see people not voting for parties who protect again and again corporate interests?
Not really ...
Instead the member states are competing against each other to provide even better deals for the big corporations.
And the guy responsible for a lot of shady tax deals was promoted to the head of the eu commission.

It seems that cheating the state for as much tax as you can without getting into trouble is pretty much accepted behaviour, isn't it?

It's actually often misrepresented as this, but it's not. For example we have a type of savings account in the UK called an ISA. Every year each citizen can invest an amount in their ISA that is free of taxation on the interest it earns. Just about everyone with money to save will put it in an ISA of some kind (there are different flavours, some allow stocks and shares investments). Investing in an ISA is tax avoidance, because it is reducing the tax you would otherwise be paying on interest on your investment. It's sanctioned by the government, almost encouraged, and no-one (or at least very few) would say it is wrong. When you see shocking statistics on the scale of tax avoidance, have no doubt that such schemes are included in those scary figures.

Similarly so for corporations, there are ways to avoid tax. For example if I'm a mining firm, and I spend £100K of my profits on a new drill, I can write that down as capital expenditure. I will not pay tax on £100K of profits because of this, so it is avoiding £100K of taxed profit (note, that's not £100K of tax, just what I'd pay on the profits). This is an entirely justified scheme that has been around for ages. The idea is that the drill will depreciate and the investment will eventually become worthless, so it's not ever been profit, it's just a time delayed cost of running the business, so the business is allowed to account for it. Whenever you hear those shocking statistics, remember that this tax avoidance is included in them, but there's nothing wrong with it.

Then there are the "unfair" forms of tax avoidance. Examples of this would include Google's aggressive accounting of where the profits are earned in order to pay low corporation tax, or Starbuck's use of "royalty payments" to their beans provider to all but wipe out their UK profit. There are 2 arguments to this one: There is the argument that this is also ok, as in order for the company to achieve its overall goal of paying this money out as a dividend, it must declare it somewhere as a profit at some point (at which point it is taxed). Others argue that they will find ways around that too, this is beyond my knowledge to argue, I can point you at some articles if interested.

Then there is tax evasion. This is straight up fraud of the taxman. It's the builder taking a cash payment for a job, then not telling the taxman about that work, thus not paying on the earnings. It's the business / individual just not declaring income that they are supposed to.

I'd suggest when you hear figures on tax avoidance, and how wrong it is, to remember how broad an issue it is, and how likely some of these other more palatable schemes are being mixed in to inflate these figures

Sorry for the long reply :).

I don't like this either (although from the opposite angle). I find it surprising what Greece is apparently willing to do before they even consider having an own currency and devaluate. As it is - we all lose now. The planned privatizations in Greece, if they happen, will never bring the estimated sums but only much, much less. This is a big fraud, aimed to please the public here. Already in 2011 this was planned and it didn't happen. At least the privatizations are a fake package.

Sigh. This is quite a lot of smoke you're blowing on your initial post and - for what reason - to avoid answering an honest question and save some face.

Your initial post had three paragraphs. The first being a trite aphorism - gotta save in good times, otherwise no safety net in bad. Your second paragraph was a lot of grandstanding self congratulatory, 'I saw this coming' talk. Let me "quote for truth" as you like to say:
And then finally your last paragraph ended on proposing Greece is inevitable for us all:
Feel free to point out where - in any of this - you mention a course of action other than resigning to the "eventuality." There are no other outcomes you expressed as possible - in fact your joke at the end promotes a cynicism in believing otherwise. Therefore: questioning your post as promoting apathy and fatalism is not only accurate - it's easy to do - and in the time since, you've not expressed anything to the contrary, any positive alternative.

If you're going to ruffle your feathers up - it might be worth having something of substance to ruffle them for.

Apart from the current problems in Greece I think that one of the key questions is if we can continue to grow (our economy) without adding to the debt (public debt)?

I think we can, we only need a bit higher base inflation than now.

The idea goes as follows.

- We can spend money publicly up to a certain extent.
- What we spend we collect as taxes before, so no more additional debt.
- Without more additional debt, there is a shortfall in spending.
- A shortfall in spending is an excess of saving.
- Excess saving can be neutralized by additional inflation.

Not really rocket science but a rather simple recipe.

Goal is to keep unemployment down and to balance capital income and work income. Of course this doesn't work endlessly but I'm sure it would work a bit better than now.

It's better than Japanese style deflation anyway.

I already answered you question twice... just not the way you wanted me to Kommissar. :)

In the OP I did not provide any solution, but so what? My not providing a solution does not prove I don't believe in some solution, nor does it prove a solution does not exist. It certainly is not an advocation to resign to anything. Hence you can keep your interpretation of inevitability, I'm not buying. In fact I implied toward the solutions I see already, while answering you that the alternative to 'apathy' I see is precisely 'individualism'. I'm using your words, for the ease of your comprehension - I'd prefer to use different words.

You are for some reason hung up on my initial post, which was rhetorical and not even directed at you. I guess that proves something... You know what rhetoric is right? It's those things you noticed: the cliches, the humor, the authority pose (and it's the Kommisar, and asking you then answering myself, and the ...). All of it designed to make a message connect more efficiently than pure logic, to ressonate at the emotional or ethical level instead. Anyway, it's sure strange that after simplifying my post to one quote and jumping to the apathy interpretation you now decide to go and dissect it, after I have already done so on your request. Kind of transparent whose feathers are ruffled honestly...

You're right about one thing. It's darn easy to question someone else. What's harder to do is to actually base the questions on more than just your subjective interpretation, and also to actually listen to the answers. Suggest you try it, there are other ways of looking at the world than yours.

Growing the economy doesn't mean that the riches will be distributed to all its citizens. The wealth remains in the huge corporates and self serving individuals.

The banking/finance system has us over a barrel and we're just helping them by metaphorically taking our pants off. They scare us of talk of a failing economy and what happens then? Some weird messed up share package looses x number of points. Investors then panic and bam! our money has disappeared. Note, it's our money during recession but when profits are poring in, it's shareholder profits.

Like the great depression, where all the poor said "Hurrah, the bankers have lost all their money!", "Now we will live free lives of unending prosperity".

The great depression in the 1930s or the banking crises in 2008? If the latter and as the economy recovers, where is the money being saved? If you're a supporter of austerity measures and the like then all I ask you to do is look at whether the poor and vulnerable have benefited from the economy growing. Why are more and more people relying on food banks? How can people live in £50M homes in London and be within 100 metres of homeless people trying to find a spot to sleep where they're not told to move by officers?

Then look at the Global economy. Forget it's intricacies, how can so many people live in famine, diseased and dangerous lands while traders play with their paper money?

On it's most basic level, this can't be right or acceptable, can it?

Well, the simple answer then, is to put people like you in charge. You can then forcibly separate people from their wealth. Seize it from those who created it. Seize it upon threat of death or imprisonment, with the authority - and weaponry - of the central government behind you. Then you, in your wisdom, can redistribute it to whomever you deem most deserving of it.

FUCK THAT!

Put a chimp in charge with an 18" rubber cock and you'll see those fuckers paying their tax! ;D

Ugh. Seriously? "Forget it's intricacies" and then try to have a useful assessment of something? Aside from the fact that your comment is just a plea to the inequity of the human condition (which isn't changing any time soon), why would you even suggest that it's ok to judge something based on a willful ignorance of how it works? That's basically the textbook case of bandaids on bullet holes; you might end up with something that looks ok from a distance, but you haven't actually helped and probably just hid the problem and allowed it to worsen.

I don't disagree with your emotional premise that gross wealth inequality is bad. But man have you found a way to phrase it to get a kneejerk reaction from me. There's no such thing as a complicated system that can be reliably fixed by ignoring details and hoping for the best.

Again, there's no interpretation needed when you say:

You can do all the summersaults you want, there's nothing "rhetorical" about your statement above.

Uh-huh thus the legitimacy of my questioning your view as your "eventuality" presumes nothing can be done to change that "eventuality." Maybe being from Poland you're rusty on what that word actually means. Mistakes happen.

So now after conceding you didn't have an answer you're saying you implied one? But after 3 smug retorts apparently you can't be explicit? It seems If you were legitimately arguing a position or even had one in this case, i.e. a positive alternative to your initial statement of eventualities you wouldn't need to hide behind an excuse of implications.

At this point you're either unwilling or unable to engage in anything more substantive than insults as the issue is still not being addressed, which is probably where it should be left as you've been given enough of an opportunity to clarify yourself.

Yeah, that's pretty much the problem. Unless European taxpayers are willing to continue to throw stupid amounts of money at Greece (and see little or none of it back) then these continued bailouts are just prolonging the inevitable. I think the biggest problem is that there is not the will in Greece, either in the political or popular sense, to implement the kinds of reforms needed to make Greece's economy and finances sustainable. I think the only way that will could possibly come about right now is by Greece being denied any further access to credit, thus forcing them to rebuild their economy and finances into something sustainable (or collapse as a country if they fail to do this).

The key difference between Greece's situation and the others you compared it to is the difference between sovereign debt and non-sovereign debt. With non-sovereign debt (such as municipal debt in the case of cities) there are higher laws in place that govern how it is handled, and federal powers that can step in to act as arbiters. In the US we've had a couple large cities (e.g. Detroit and Stockton) go into bankruptcy a few years ago; in such a situation they go through what's called Chapter 9 bankruptcy which is overseen by a federal judge. The judge will hear proposals from both the city and its creditors, then have the final say on what course of action is taken. If the city refuses to go along with what the judge says then the judge can appoint an independent administrator to take control of the city's finances until the bankruptcy is resolved. With sovereign debt, though, no one has the power to force a nation to manage its finances in a certain way in order to repay part or all of its debts. The only leverage creditors have when it comes to sovereign debt is to refuse to loan a nation in default any more money, which is the situation Greece is currently facing. Actually, with the latest bailout terms that have been put on the table the situation with Greece has moved a bit towards the situation I just described with non-sovereign debt, in that as a condition for receiving further loans Greece needs to agree to a certain amount of oversight from its creditors.

Ultimately all of this underlines a key problem with the Euro, in that it is a monetary union with an accompanying fiscal or political union. Without the latter two it is more difficult to rescue nations in financial trouble because there are no shared financial concerns (less motivation for other nations in the monetary union to help out) and because there is no way to force nations in trouble to handle their finances and policies in a certain way (as a way of fixing things if the problems were due to decisions the troubled nation itself undertook). So instead we're left with the current messy situation of the rest of the EU only having the specter of Greek financial collapse absent new loans as a cudgel to use to get Greece to adopt policies that might be able to put them back on the path to a sustainable economy.