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

[kentonio]

I Think some of the issue in Europe is that the Church spends a lot of money on up-keeping buildings of historic interest (old churches) also. There is apparently some ill will towards it due to the fact that these buildings are theoretically worth a lot although not capable of providing a high return.

JM

I don't have particular ill will towards the church for having old buildings, some of them are incredibly beautiful and in England especially their age makes them hugely important cultural landmarks.

I'd actually be fine with your option two, although if the government (well in the UK we have a conservation organization that looks after such things, called the National Trust) are taking over their maintenance then no they are not going to receive some huge valuation of the property. It'd be likely in fact they wouldn't receive any recompense for the buildings.

If they care deeply about their preservation and cannot afford to maintain them, then they'd gift them to the nation, probably with the agreement that they could continue to be used for church services. This kind of arrangement has happened many times in the past with privately owned historical buildings.

[Jon Miller]

Wealth with a high return or 'Wealth' with a negative return?

And in this case, we are talking about the Orthodox Church and not the Catholic Church.

It is actually what I saw from British, Belgium (and I think French) cases where some churches were operated by the government and not by the Church which makes me realize that if the churches were operated by the government, it would be the government losing money on them and not the Church.

JM
(In Britain the primary Church is Anglican, in Italy it is Catholic, in Greece it is Orthodox)

[Jon Miller]

I don't have particular ill will towards the church for having old buildings, some of them are incredibly beautiful and in England especially their age makes them hugely important cultural landmarks. I'd actually be fine with your option two, although if the government are taking over their maintenance then no they are not going to receive some huge valuation of the property. It'd be likely in fact they wouldn't receive any recompense for the buildings. If they care deeply about their preservation and cannot afford to maintain them, then they'd gift them to the nation, probably with the agreement that they could continue to be used for church services. This kind of arrangement has happened many times in the past with privately owned historical buildings.

They seem to be able to maintain them (right now, maybe not into the future).

You are asking more than for them to maintain them, you are asking (or Cockney is, and you are defending his position) for the Church to pay a huge tax on them because they are theoretical wealth.

Additionally, Cockney's desire is to have more operating money from the Church, which wouldn't be the case if the State took over running them for an operating loss.

Taking them by taxing them based on classifying them as wealth which they aren't (to anyone, as you just said the State wouldn't pay for them for their theoretical price) is just robbery, why would you even suggest such a thing unless you were anti-Church?

JM
(I am actually sure that many US protestants would be in favor due to being anti-Church)

[kentonio]

It is actually what I saw from British, Belgium (and I think French) cases where some churches were operated by the government and not by the Church which makes me realize that if the churches were operated by the government, it would be the government losing money on them and not the Church.

The National Trust makes money by offering memberships that let people go and visit the places that they conserve, which allows them to continue maintaining them. If it required some government investment too to keep the churches maintained though (and they belonged to the nation) I'd have no problem with that. Hundreds of years old buildings are part of our history, and we'd be poorer for losing them.

(In Britain the primary Church is Anglican, in Italy it is Catholic, in Greece it is Orthodox)

Yes I know. I'm European remember.

[kentonio]

You are asking more than for them to maintain them, you are asking (or Cockney is, and you are defending his position) for the Church to pay a huge tax on them because they are theoretical wealth.

C0ckney is more than capable of defending his own position. I took umbrage at your suggestion that 5% tax on donations was too much and constituted an attack on the church, which is what you seemed to be saying.

Taking them by taxing them based on classifying them as wealth which they aren't (to anyone, as you just said the State wouldn't pay for them for their theoretical price) is just robbery, why would you even suggest such a thing unless you were anti-Church?

You can have that debate with C0ckney, I'm not the one calling for a tax on their wealth (although I see the appeal and wouldn't particularly care if it happened).

[Jon Miller]

Ken (as the government): You have a nice building there. It is worth a lot of money, very valuable, unique. You should be paying a lot of taxes on it.
Priest: I don't have the money to pay a lot of taxes on it, it costs a lot of money even to upkeep it in the way that everyone wants it to be.
Ken: Well, if you don't have the money then you need to sell it.
Priest: But who can I sell it to? No one wants to lose money keeping it up. I could sell it to someone who wants to tear it down.
Ken: No, the people who live in the area (and the tourists/etc) wouldn't like that!
Priest: Then what should I do. I would like to keep it.
Ken: You can give it to me. Obviously I won't pay money for it because you can't sell it to someone who will keep it up. Because I am so generous I will even forgive you the taxes you owe on it.
Priest: Thank you, I guess .

JM

[Jon Miller]

C0ckney is more than capable of defending his own position. I took umbrage at your suggestion that 5% tax on donations was too much and constituted an attack on the church, which is what you seemed to be saying.

I quite obviously addressed the land tax idea (see post 180). I said that I didn't like taxes on donations, but that was it.

In 187 I even clarified myself that I was taking great exception to the property tax idea and not to the donation tax idea (except that I would note that in the US normal corporations with a similar financial status as the Church would not be paying taxes on them either... (if you considered them income from providing a service) ).

JM

[kentonio]

Ken (as the government): You have a nice building there. It is worth a lot of money, very valuable, unique. You should be paying a lot of taxes on it.
Priest: I don't have the money to pay a lot of taxes on it, it costs a lot of money even to upkeep it in the way that everyone wants it to be.
Ken: Well, if you don't have the money then you need to sell it.
Priest: But who can I sell it to? No one wants to lose money keeping it up. I could sell it to someone who wants to tear it down.
Ken: No, the people who live in the area (and the tourists/etc) wouldn't like that!
Priest: Then what should I do. I would like to keep it.
Ken: You can give it to me. Obviously I won't pay money for it because you can't sell it to someone who will keep it up. Because I am so generous I will even forgive you the taxes you owe on it.
Priest: Thank you, I guess .

JM

Well given that just minutes ago I told you that was C0ckneys desire not mine, I'm quite confused by why you'd try and use me as the protagonist.

What I've been saying is that the church should be taxed on donations. I'd actually excuse them those taxes if they could prove that the vast majority of the money was going directly into charitable causes. If the church can't afford to maintain its buildings then they'll have to stop owning them, like anyone else in that position would.

Incidentally your earlier comment about them being 'torn down' by private owners, couldn't actually happen here. A huge proportion of our churches are hundreds of years old, and that means they'll have protected status. For the most significant ones, a new owner couldn't even change a window or door without matching the original materials and style to the satisfaction of the organization that monitors those buildings.

[Jon Miller]

Yes.

Which is the reason why there would be serious difficulty finding new owners who would be willing to pay what they are 'worth'.

JM

[kentonio]

Yes.

Which is the reason why there would be serious difficulty finding new owners who would be willing to pay what they are 'worth'.

JM

Who cares? They were built largely on money 'taxed' from the poor in previous generations or gifted by wealthy god fearing folk. What exactly is the church supposed to be to you? A giant land and property owner with vast assets? Because I'm damned if I remember that part in the bible.

[Jon Miller]

Do you think that keeping up a museum/landmark is a charitable enterprise? If so it is pretty likely that these Churches are mostly charitable (even if you don't count preaching as charity).

I could see the point in saying that if the Church takes tax exempt status due in part to running the churches as public museums/landmarks, then the churches should be available for everyone to use for church type activities (such as marriage between two men/etc).

I believe this is already true in many places in Europe though. Maybe not Greece.

JM

[Sir Og]

I am not sure if I hae already posted this interesting article about Greece.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/varoufakis-ecb-grexit-threat-by-hans-werner-sinn-2015-05

Varoufakis’s Great Game

MUNICH – Game theorists know that a Plan A is never enough. One must also develop and put forward a credible Plan B – the implied threat that drives forward negotiations on Plan A. Greece’s finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, knows this very well. As the Greek government’s anointed “heavy,” he is working Plan B (a potential exit from the eurozone), while Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras makes himself available for Plan A (an extension on Greece’s loan agreement, and a renegotiation of the terms of its bailout). In a sense, they are playing the classic game of “good cop/bad cop” – and, so far, to great effect.

Plan B comprises two key elements. First, there is simple provocation, aimed at riling up Greek citizens and thus escalating tensions between the country and its creditors. Greece’s citizens must believe that they are escaping grave injustice if they are to continue to trust their government during the difficult period that would follow an exit from the eurozone.

Second, the Greek government is driving up the costs of Plan B for the other side, by allowing capital flight by its citizens. If it so chose, the government could contain this trend with a more conciliatory approach, or stop it outright with the introduction of capital controls. But doing so would weaken its negotiating position, and that is not an option.

Capital flight does not mean that capital is moving abroad in net terms, but rather that private capital is being turned into public capital. Basically, Greek citizens take out loans from local banks, funded largely by the Greek central bank, which acquires funds through the European Central Bank’s emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) scheme. They then transfer the money to other countries to purchase foreign assets (or redeem their debts), draining liquidity from their country’s banks.

Other eurozone central banks are thus forced to create new money to fulfill the payment orders for the Greek citizens, effectively giving the Greek central bank an overdraft credit, as measured by the so-called TARGET liabilities. In January and February, Greece’s TARGET debts increased by almost €1 billion ($1.1 billion) per day, owing to capital flight by Greek citizens and foreign investors. At the end of April, those debts amounted to €99 billion.

A Greek exit would not damage the accounts that its citizens have set up in other eurozone countries – let alone cause Greeks to lose the assets they have purchased with those accounts. But it would leave those countries’ central banks stuck with euro-denominated TARGET claims vis-à-vis Greece’s central bank, which would have assets denominated only in a restored drachma. Given the new currency’s inevitable devaluation, together with the fact that the Greek government does not have to backstop its central bank’s debt, a default depriving the other central banks of their claims would be all but certain.

A similar situation arises when Greek citizens withdraw cash from their accounts and hoard it in suitcases or take it abroad. If Greece abandoned the euro, a substantial share of these funds – which totaled €43 billion at the end of April – would flow into the rest of the eurozone, both to purchase goods and assets and to pay off debts, resulting in a net loss for the monetary union’s remaining members.

All of this strengthens the Greek government’s negotiating position considerably. Small wonder, then, that Varoufakis and Tsipras are playing for time, refusing to submit a list of meaningful reform proposals.

The ECB bears considerable responsibility for this situation. By failing to produce the two-thirds majority in the ECB Council needed to limit the Greek central bank’s self-serving strategy, it has allowed the creation of more than €80 billion in emergency liquidity, which exceeds the Greek central bank’s €41 billion in recoverable assets. With Greece’s banks guaranteed the needed funds, the government has been spared from having to introduce capital controls.

Rumor has it that the ECB is poised to adjust its approach – and soon. It knows that its argument that the ELA loans are collateralized is wearing thin, given that, in many cases, the collateral has a rating below BBB-, thus falling short of investment grade.

If the ECB finally acknowledges that this will not do, and removes Greece’s liquidity safety net, the Greek government would be forced to start negotiating seriously, because waiting would no longer do it any good. But, with the stock of money sent abroad and held in cash having already ballooned to 79% of GDP, its position would remain very strong.

In other words, thanks largely to the ECB, the Greek government would be able to secure a far more favorable outcome – including increased financial assistance and reduced reform requirements – than it could have gained at any point in the past. And if Greece exits, a large share of the acquired resources measured by the TARGET balances and the cash that has been printed would turn into an endowment gift for an independent future.

Many people in Europe seem to believe that Varoufakis, an experienced game theorist but a political neophyte, does not know how to play the cards that Greece has been dealt. They should think again – before Greece walks away with the pot.

Here is a recent joke regarding the Church.

Priests are similar to rappers around here.
They drive expensive cars,
Wear a lot of jewelry
And nobody understands what they are saying.

[Jon Miller]

Who cares? They were built largely on money 'taxed' from the poor in previous generations or gifted by wealthy god fearing folk. What exactly is the church supposed to be to you? A giant land and property owner with vast assets? Because I'm damned if I remember that part in the bible.

As I said, I would be inclined towards 2 if I ran the Church.

But for many people in the Church, the material objects are sacred.

And from a secular perspective, to take and not give a fair valuation is robbery and there is not a utilitarian loss to having the Church care for the landmark and not the Government.

JM
(and the Church, at least in Greece, seems to pay normal taxes on commercial enterprises)

[kentonio]

As I said, I would be inclined towards 2 if I ran the Church.

But for many people in the Church, the material objects are sacred.

And right there you have the reason why the church turned into the abomination it became over the centuries. When did Jesus EVER preach about items becoming sacred and more valuable than things like feeding the hungry? It's almost the exact opposite of what he said.

And from a secular perspective, to take and not give a fair valuation is robbery and there is not a utilitarian loss to having the Church care for the landmark and not the Government.

You don't get to have both. Either you're a spiritual organization in which case rampant materialism is obscene anyway, or you're a secular organization and you can play under the same rules as a supermarket or a paint manufacturer have to.

[Jon Miller]

And right there you have the reason why the church turned into the abomination it became over the centuries. When did Jesus EVER preach about items becoming sacred and more valuable than things like feeding the hungry? It's almost the exact opposite of what he said.



You don't get to have both. Either you're a spiritual organization in which case rampant materialism is obscene anyway, or you're a secular organization and you can play under the same rules as a supermarket or a paint manufacturer have to.

But you already said that it wasn't a supermarket or paint factory.

That it was like a museum/national landmark.

Why do you refuse to treat them similarly to those sort of institutions? Who also value material things?

I personally try not to judge, I know many good Catholics/Orthodox/etc. So I don't condemn them for considering material things sacred.

JM