[civil] "Greece moves closer to eurozone exit after delaying €300m repayment to IMF "

[Jon Miller]

Non-religious europeans love the idea of taxing the Church.

I understand that it is a bigger problem there than in the US, but how much of the wealth and income is owned controlled by the church (percentage of GDP)?

It seems to me to be a similar thing as privatisation... touted as a solution even when it isn't.

i think the Greeks would be happy to have some of the surplus go to debt repayment and some to stimulus, however, the Troika requires all of the surplus and further austerity. That is the problem, all it does is punish Greece. It does not result in Greece being able to pay back it's debt.

The choices are:
1. Current plan of Troika, namely that Greece gets maximally punished. This results in low debt repayment but not none. BTW, Greece has already been punished for >5 years, and I don't think they are willing to keep it up indefinitely (what will happen if everyone sticks to this option).
2. The plan that Greece would like, namely that the debts are forgiven and maybe even a stimulus. This is Greece getting minimally punished and low (lowest) debt repayment.
3. Debt repayment only comes from primary surplus, rest of debt gets renewed at 0% (or maybe forgiven in exchange for reformation). This has the maximal debt repayment and ends the Greece punishment. But Europe refuses it.

JM

[Dinner]

Please try and put aside this nonsense. Government performs a vast number of essential services, and all of them require skilled labour and administration. Calling it all make-work is just ignorant and condescending to people who work hard for a living.

The truth is actually in the middle of you two. The government is capable of creating valuable economic contributions which increase over all economic efficiency and improve economic performance (infastructure and education being two classic examples) but there is a lot of make work where the cost of providing the service/doing that work won't ever be made up via the return on investment. It is just a net lose because the benefit is much less than the cost. The key is to find those things the government really can do better than the privitely sector and which benefit more than they cost.

Cockney, many of the raw numbers you've been talking about are not very good and subject to manipulation. For instance, we can spike the economic numbers just by having two government departments sell the same shovel back and forth between each other a billion times. On paper that is the same as a billion shovels being sold only it is just one shovel going back and forth.

That is obviously an extreme example and not what is happening here but it does show why we have to look at the whole picture especially what is really productive and what is just on paper.

[giblets]

Cockney, many of the raw numbers you've been talking about are not very good and subject to manipulation. For instance, we can spike the economic numbers just by having two government departments sell the same shovel back and forth between each other a billion times. On paper that is the same as a billion shovels being sold only it is just one shovel going back and forth.

That is obviously an extreme example and not what is happening here but it does show why we have to look at the whole picture especially what is really productive and what is just on paper.

This doesn't counter the point that only a fifth of the workforce in Greece is in any way employed by the government which is totally normal by European standards. It's easy to just claim they're doing nothing of value, but that 20% includes teachers, doctors, soldiers, law enforcement, etc. No one has provided any evidence that Greece is actually paying people to do things that aren't productive.

[Dinner]

ah, so having had your greeks retire at 55 myth well and truly busted, you've now gone to 'well most greek plan to retire before 61'. next up 'most greeks plan to win the lottery', how will the lottery company avoid bankruptcy?

It is like you are illiterate. You are quoting the average of both public and private sector and I keep pointing out how in the public sector people can retire very early. 50 for women and 55 for men depending on which union they are a member of and how much political clout they have. Even your over all national average number of 61 is 7 ****ing years younger than in most of northern Europe. It is unfair and unsustainable to ask northern European taxpayers to foot the bill for such generous benefits. Greece needs to set 68 as the retirement age just like countries like Germany and Finland have.

You live in a fantasy world, dude. Just like how you kept demanding no austarity and increased spending when Greece literally had no money and no ability to borrow. What you were demanding was a financial impossibility. Greece's pension system is broke and it doesn't have the money to pay for all these early retirees nor can it borrow to pay for them so either they spend less per person, raise taxes so they can actually pay those generous early retirement pensions, or they substantially raise the retirement age. Those are your real world options but your retarded notion to not change anything sure as hell is not an option.

[Dinner]

This doesn't counter the point that only a fifth of the workforce in Greece is in any way employed by the government which is totally normal by European standards. It's easy to just claim they're doing nothing of value, but that 20% includes teachers, doctors, soldiers, law enforcement, etc. No one has provided any evidence that Greece is actually paying people to do things that aren't productive.

Letting people retire with full government pensions in their 50's sure as hell is paying people to not be productive. Push it back to 68 like Germany has.

Also there were tons of links in the other thread giving examples of extremely low productivity SOE workers. Folks working for the public electric utility who legally couldn't be fired or forced to relocate but when the local power plant got closed they still get paid their full salary even though they no longer have to go to work. Start go ogling and you find find tons of examples of how ****ed up the regulations are in Greece and just how unproductive many of the public sector workers really are. People who literally have no official duties who just show up, read the newspaper, and then collect their pay check without actually doing anything. That is make work without the work part.

[Jon Miller]

How is Northern Europe footing the bill if there is a primary surplus?

What many people seem to be concerned about are things that make countries insolvent in the long run. That is not Greece's primary problem. Greece's primary problem is being insolvent to huge loans it was forced to take due to being insolvent in the short run. And due to taking loans which were poorly designed when it was suppose to be adjusting it's economy to join the EU.

The problem is paying past debt (that liability). The problem is not future liabilities from inside the nation.

JM

[regexcellent]

The "primary surplus" you keep talking about is totally ephemeral. The government is spending more than it can raise. The entire economy is based around this. The difference is made up in lending and the spigot is getting turned off. The economy will contract; that's inevitable, and the only thing the government can do is adjust to the new reality.

[Jon Miller]

No, that isn't true.

The government was not spending more than it can raise in 2014. A huge enforced austerity was contracting which pushed the economy into recession for most of the past years. If you stop enforcing austerity, the economy naturally comes out of recession.

The reason why the recession has started again despite the government being anti-austerity is because of the uncertainty due to the lack of a deal coming from Europe.

It's not difficult to see unless you have some huge bias which doesn't allow you to observe fiscal multipliers greater than 0.

JM

[giblets]

Letting people retire with full government pensions in their 50's sure as hell is paying people to not be productive. Push it back to 68 like Germany has.

Also there were tons of links in the other thread giving examples of extremely low productivity SOE workers. Folks working for the public electric utility who legally couldn't be fired or forced to relocate but when the local power plant got closed they still get paid their full salary even though they no longer have to go to work. Start go ogling and you find find tons of examples of how ****ed up the regulations are in Greece and just how unproductive many of the public sector workers really are. People who literally have no official duties who just show up, read the newspaper, and then collect their pay check without actually doing anything. That is make work without the work part.

If you can't be bothered to actually provide sources and instead are just going to tell me to google maybe you shouldn't bother posting.

Even if 1 in 10 people at SOE's were getting paid to do nothing that would only account for 1-2% of the GDP of Greece. So Greece would be 1-2% less productive then it officially claims to be.

[Jon Miller]

Note that most people (like myself) are not even suggesting that Europe turns on a spigot in Greece (option 2 above).

We are just saying that if Europe wants to maximize repayment, they need to not continue to enforce austerity.

Something simple like half of the primary surplus would be reasonable.

Continuing to enforce austerity just means misery for Greece until they can't take it anymore and exit the EU. It doesn't maximise repayment and it minimizes utility.

JM

[regexcellent]

JM, the fiscal multiplier is always zero.

http://mercatus.org/publication/why-fiscal-multiplier-roughly-zero-0

[giblets]

JM, the fiscal multiplier is always zero.

http://mercatus.org/publication/why-...roughly-zero-0

The link is discussing an economy with monetary offset. GREECE DOESN'T HAVE MONETARY OFFSET BECAUSE GREECE IS ON THE EURO.

[Dinner]

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/business/2010/04/28/in_greece_you_get_a_bonus_for_showing_up_for_work.html

Excellent reading if a bit dated (it is from 2010). Government workers who die can have their pensions passed on to unmarried daughters. Those daughters still shack up with guys and have kids but don't officially get married because they want to keep collecting their dead parents pensions for the rest of their lives. Relatives of workers of the state airline got to fly the world for free (luckily that company was finally privitized in 2008 and could finally get reformed). Fully paid goverent commissions to manage lakes which dried up in the 1930's, surely there is no need toan age a lake which hasn't existed for 80+ years?

That is just the start. Read the article.

[Dinner]

No, that isn't true.

The government was not spending more than it can raise in 2014. A huge enforced austerity was contracting which pushed the economy into recession for most of the past years. If you stop enforcing austerity, the economy naturally comes out of recession.

The reason why the recession has started again despite the government being anti-austerity is because of the uncertainty due to the lack of a deal coming from Europe.

It's not difficult to see unless you have some huge bias which doesn't allow you to observe fiscal multipliers greater than 0.

JM

JM, what you are suggesting, when you talk about primary surpluses (which means government income vs debts not counting payments or interest on the national debt), is that Greece just not pay it's national debt. Yes, if it didn't have to pay it's national debt then it would be in surplus but the reality is it does have to pay it's national debt thus it's problems.

[Dinner]

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-government-sector-employment-2011-11

Once you count everything the number of state sector workers in Greece is close to 30% whicheck is lower than countries like France but France doesn't have a debt crisis.