Greek standing up to the Plutocracy that would pilfer through taxes and austerity
It should drive us all crazy the manner in which the media is covering the Greece story. The Wall Street Journal has a headline “Greece Struggles to Get Citizens to Pay Their Taxes.” This paragraph was rather striking.
The International Monetary Fund and Greece’s other creditors have argued for years that the country’s debt crisis could be largely resolved if the government just cracked down on tax evasion. Tax debts in Greece equal about 90% of annual tax revenue, the highest shortfall among industrialized nations, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
If one is to believe Right Wing rhetoric, the tax breaks the Greeks have chosen to self-impose should have meant a booming economy. After all, is it not their theory that people can always spend their monies better than the government?
What is ironic is that the disdain for the Greeks who are trying to avoid paying taxes seem to not apply to the real culprits of tax evasion, the worldwide plutocracy that hide their monies in offshore havens.
But then comes the statement from economist Thomas Piketty as reported by Market Watch.
The prominent French economist Thomas Piketty, who rocketed to fame last year with his book on income inequality, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” is slamming Germany’s refusal to consider debt relief for Greece.
In an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit, Piketty said Germany didn’t repay its external debt after World War I nor did it repay debts after World War II and thus “has no standing to lecture other nations.”
Piketty said the postwar German economic miracle was rooted at least in part on debt relief, noting that the London Debt Agreement of 1953 forgave 60% of German foreign debt and restructured its internal debts. Similar steps should be taken now with Greece, he said.
Germany should be ashamed for the punitive stance they are taking with Greece. It is a display of strength that the Greek people knowing they are likely to pay a price stood up to Germany’s, Europe’s, and the plutocracy’s fascist behavior.