Exploding the myth of the feckless, lazy Greeks

[ErikJ]

87. What? WRONG WRONG WRONG

THom Hartmann just said today that tax evasion is one of the big problems in Greece but it was Goldman-Sachs banksters that put them so far in debt by lending them money in the form of Credit Default Swaps so that Greece could hide their high debt so they could join the EU. WHen the CDS's went bust the Greek debt also exploded.

And your assertion that taxes takes money out of the economy is very wrong. It generally keeps the money IN the economy!

Thom also said that it was recently revealed that a lot of Greek ultra-rich have been hiding and hoarding their money in offshore banks like the rich here do.

That hoarded money is COMPLETELY removed from the Greek economy like here in the US. That is one of the purposes of high taxation on the rich, to keep the money in the country and put to good use for the public good which is recycled back into the economy much better than if it were in a Swiss bank.

This is just one of several articles about rampant tax evasion in the P.I.G. countries.

Tax evaders in Greece, Spain and Italy better beware
By Jabeen Bhatti, Nikolia Apostolou, Eric J. Lyman, Evangeline O'Regan, Special for USA TODAY

"Greece has a projected debt burden of 162% of GDP this year. The amount of taxes past due to the state is $78 billion, according to a 2011 report by the EU's Task Force for Greece. EU officials say that about half of that will never get collected, and the other half is tied up in 165,000 pending court cases.
Paying for things in cash is the norm in Greece (and Italy and Spain), making it hard for tax inspectors to track. In Greece, cash transactions accounted for 25% of GDP, according to a 2011 report by Friedrich Schneider, a professor of economics at the University of Linz in Austria. And the EU suspects tens of millions of dollars in Greek income has been deposited out of sight in Switzerland banks."