The Poverty of the Greek people

[Ephilant]

Statistics released this morning reveal another aspect to the poverty problem, previously only suspected but no real figures were available.

A survey amongst property owners reveals not only that the property owners have serious problems renting out premises, commercial as well as private, with an estimated 1 in 3 houses empty in this country. In all it's wisdom, the government has just raised the tax rates on property, with total disregards of the property earning "income" or not. Many owners find themselves facing winter maintenance bills as well as higher taxes without any property return to attempt to cover even part of this extra expense. One of the new tax laws on properties is the collection of tax on rent not yet received. Whether a property is rented or not, the owner is to pay tax on the "deemed income from rent", and can then try and get it back. Many property owners describe their rental properties as a tax burden rather than a form of income.

The really frightening statistic coming out of this survey is that in the 33% of private dwellings that are being rented, tenants are, on average, 3 months behind in rent! About 35% of tenants are between 6 months and 2 years in arrears, whiles some 10% are over 2 years in arrears. The average rent for a 1 bedroom flat, unfurnished, in Greece is 130 € per month. The average electricity bill would be more than the rent, around 145 € per month. My neighbour just got her "new, simplified" electricity bill, and it is indeed simplified. It makes it very clear that her electricity consumption for the month translates into 62€ for actual electricity, and 168€ in taxes, including a rather nondescript 46€ for "stamps"...

A further analysis of the rent situation reveals that very few evictions are enforced by private property owners. Any case of eviction mentioned is attributed to a large portfolio holder, and although hard to confirm from the survey, it would seem that most of the evictions have been enforced by foreign owned companies. About 10% of the evictions have been enforced on non-nationals from other EU countries, mainly British.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

What is the situation with regard to this property tax where a flat is empty, Ephilant? Do those British and other companies have to pay the tax while the property is empty?

[Ephilant]

What is the situation with regard to this property tax where a flat is empty, Ephilant? Do those British and other companies have to pay the tax while the property is empty?

That would very much depend on where the company is registered, how much Fakelaki is handed over, and how their payment systems are set up. If they are based and registered in Greece, then they should indeed pay taxes. Whether they do or not is a different question. There is ample evidence of multinational companies "massaging" the rules ending up not paying a cent. Dublin is not alone in facilitating legalised tax evasion.
Venizelos airport (Athens) is owned by a German company who have yet to pay a single cent tax in this country.
In the property game I am aware of at least one British company here who own over 200 holiday homes and work on-line only, the site is hosted in the UK, all rents are collected into a Jersey bank account via either direct transfer or credit card and I am fairly certain not too much tax is, or ever has been paid on their quite substantial revenue from these houses. But these are holiday homes, not long term rentals. No Greeks would, or could afford to rent these places. Some of their rents are 1000 € a week, and you don't see too many empty houses either.
The new building regulations are making life very difficult for these guys, and about time.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Thanks for that, Ephilant. I wonder whether the vultures looking to buy up Greek islands and other land and property assets will have factored in the inevitable resentment among the locals towards foreigners/Germans in particular taking advantage of the crisis.

I have to say being only a visitor to Greece occasionally my impression was that it is best not to get the backs of the locals up as they have a strong tradition of resolving such issues locally and are very good at going silent where the police are concerned.

You'd want to be nuts to try and buy up land cheap on the islands or Adriatic coasts and expect to be warmly welcomed by the local community.

[Ephilant]

You'd want to be nuts to try and buy up land cheap on the islands or Adriatic coasts and expect to be warmly welcomed by the local community.

Buying land is a relatively recent development, and by far the biggest contributor to all the confusion with properties in Greece. Because of the long history of occupation, with the inevitable landgrabbing and taxation imposed on the locals by the same occupiers, things developed a little different here. Traditionally, land is common, and a family gets the ok from the community to occupy a certain amount of land for family use. That land is passed on from father to son, providing the son stays on the land and works it. However, the son is fully within his rights to give a loan of the land to his sister or so, and go and work somewhere else. So, the land stays within the family, and is divided up between them when somebody passes away. In true Greek style, nothing is written down, no contracts, no money changes hands (officially anyway) and nobody indeed knows anything. And the big boys come in with contracts and rules and regulations. The Greek will take the money, but the contracts, rules and regulations mean nothing to him. He is not a crook, they literally do mean nothing to him and he will put up a fight if anybody tries to implement rules and regulations. A law lecturer in the university of Athens once told me that every single law in the Greek legislature can be applied on totally opposite situations and fully legalise both situations. And then the rest of Europe wonders why this place is chaos? It isn't to us, just don't try to get your heads around the way things work here.
Unless in government, no Greek will do another Greek, that is the unspoken law. No Greek will do anybody, providing whoever anybody is behaves, lives and works with the community on the terms of the community. Try and impose terms, and you are looking for a world of long term hassle. That is the main reason why every attempt to regulate this place fails miserably. Greeks are extremely inventive when it comes to bypassing rules and regulations. Any farmer anywhere in the country will hoodwink the complete Troika in 5 seconds flat. Lao Tzu once said 'don't push the river". We don't, but we are very good at diverting it unnoticed...

[fluffybiscuits]

Buying land is a relatively recent development, and by far the biggest contributor to all the confusion with properties in Greece. Because of the long history of occupation, with the inevitable landgrabbing and taxation imposed on the locals by the same occupiers, things developed a little different here. Traditionally, land is common, and a family gets the ok from the community to occupy a certain amount of land for family use. That land is passed on from father to son, providing the son stays on the land and works it. However, the son is fully within his rights to give a loan of the land to his sister or so, and go and work somewhere else. So, the land stays within the family, and is divided up between them when somebody passes away. In true Greek style, nothing is written down, no contracts, no money changes hands (officially anyway) and nobody indeed knows anything. And the big boys come in with contracts and rules and regulations. The Greek will take the money, but the contracts, rules and regulations mean nothing to him. He is not a crook, they literally do mean nothing to him and he will put up a fight if anybody tries to implement rules and regulations. A law lecturer in the university of Athens once told me that every single law in the Greek legislature can be applied on totally opposite situations and fully legalise both situations. And then the rest of Europe wonders why this place is chaos? It isn't to us, just don't try to get your heads around the way things work here.
Unless in government, no Greek will do another Greek, that is the unspoken law. No Greek will do anybody, providing whoever anybody is behaves, lives and works with the community on the terms of the community. Try and impose terms, and you are looking for a world of long term hassle. That is the main reason why every attempt to regulate this place fails miserably. Greeks are extremely inventive when it comes to bypassing rules and regulations. Any farmer anywhere in the country will hoodwink the complete Troika in 5 seconds flat. Lao Tzu once said 'don't push the river". We don't, but we are very good at diverting it unnoticed...

That is very interesting, suppose its the impact of the old way of life and now the law of contracts clashing. I read a book years ago on a guy who buys a plot of land on an Agean Island with a olive oil business and goes into business. He spends his time drinking raki with the locals and inevitably comes out and meets the locals at the local tavernas but gets to know them and they accept him warmy into the community. Its understandable locals being suspicious of anyone disrupting the community as its just human nature. It was the same in France when my family bought an old cottage years ago to do up, they got on side by making friends with the local mayor at the mairie .

[Ephilant]

And now for the next trick in the "How to screw poor people" manual.

Who-ever came up this one must be one of the sickest minds going. As of 01/01/2013, seasonal workers in Greece wil be allowed a maximum of 450 days "unemployment" money, back dated to 01/01/2009. And just to make sure that nobody ends up getting anything, from 01/01/2014, the total amount of "paid"unemployment days will be reduced to 250.

This new Troika imposed rule will hit everybody working in the tourist industry, most of whom are young people, single parent families, and by the nature of things, poor people.
The tourist season in Greece runs from 01/05 to 31/10. That is when 95% of tourist resorts close their doors, most of whom actually expecting not to re-open them again, ever.
But, according to the same Troika, tourism is one of the pillars on which Greece must rebuild itself....

Just to make this clear: the 450 days, to be reduced to 250 days, is the total allowed in the LIFE TIME of the seasonal worker.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Traditionally, land is common, and a family gets the ok from the community to occupy a certain amount of land for family use. That land is passed on from father to son, providing the son stays on the land and works it. However, the son is fully within his rights to give a loan of the land to his sister or so, and go and work somewhere else. So, the land stays within the family, and is divided up between them when somebody passes away. In true Greek style, nothing is written down, no contracts, no money changes hands (officially anyway) and nobody indeed knows anything. And the big boys come in with contracts and rules and regulations. The Greek will take the money, but the contracts, rules and regulations mean nothing to him. He is not a crook, they literally do mean nothing to him and he will put up a fight if anybody tries to implement rules and regulations. A law lecturer in the university of Athens once told me that every single law in the Greek legislature can be applied on totally opposite situations and fully legalise both situations. And then the rest of Europe wonders why this place is chaos? It isn't to us, just don't try to get your heads around the way things work here.
Unless in government, no Greek will do another Greek, that is the unspoken law. No Greek will do anybody, providing whoever anybody is behaves, lives and works with the community on the terms of the community. Try and impose terms, and you are looking for a world of long term hassle. That is the main reason why every attempt to regulate this place fails miserably.

Now that is interesting and reads like Commonhold in the UK and Ireland which was attacked and got rid of by estate landlords in the early 19th century. Villages in England used to have 'common' land- only left in memory now by cricket pitches and those rather lovely chocolate box scenes of a village pond and geese and ducks wandering around. Strips of land held in common by villages were done away with by the Enclosure (Inclosure) Acts which had a huge effect on working conditions.

Previously villagers or locals had some level of independence because they could graze a cow or goats or sheep on these strips of local commonhold. Afterwards the dependent farm labourer had no means of production of his own and was dependent totally on the local landowner to eat.

That Greek system is ancient alright- and we had much the same system in Ireland. Again we see the Norman strain of feudalism in the 19th century, in Ireland from the 16th century onwards and now in Greece we will see the Norman feudalism rear its head.

Bear in mind that the Greek bailouts are signed under English law at the insistence of the IMF rather than under Greek law- to prevent the possibility of Tsipras getting in and changing Greek law and 'disinheriting' the new owners or nationalising their looted land.

Strange how the Norman feudal system of law is preferred by vulture capitalists isn't it? Especially around land.

[Ephilant]

Today is "όχι" day, ("no" day), the day the Greek people said "Nein" to the Junta. It is also the day of Agios Dimitrios (Saint Dimitrios), patron Saint of Thessaloniki. As usual, thousands of religious Greeks went to the Cathedral of Agios Dimitrios today to celebrate their patron saint and the getting rid of the Junta.
Imagine their consternation to find they could not get anywhere near the church which was completely surrounded by riot police, fences, you name it. anybody who wanted to attend the ceremony needed official permission, was frog marched through a row of police officers, padded down and eventually left into the church, where they had to sit on designated seats.
Why? Mr Antonis Samaras felt it necessary to "attend" the service and hold a sermon telling the people of Greece that if we stick together, we will have a better Greece to live in, soon. He thenm realized that he is not really mister popular around the place, and instead of doing the decent thing and crawling back in to his box, he decided to spend hundreds of thousands on his personal security, and to hell with the plebs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=a8oai9IfHek

[20 yards of linen=1 coat]

Full text of the third “memorandum of understanding” between the troika and the greek government
Monday, October 29, 2012

As the rumours regarding the voting in of the new memorandum in the present week intensify, the agreement’s full text has now become available online. The greek text is here.

Key points include (list to be updated!)

- Should the targets in the health sector not be met in the first two months, it is possible for cost participation waiving to be cancelled out for everyone, including cancer patients.

- From mid-2013 on, the Public Power Corporation (DEI) will rapidly increase its charges, while all special rates for the most sensitive parts of the population will cease to exist. As of June 2013, the PPC will be unable to offer any kind of settlement to its clients regarding their bills – something that any private corporation is permitted to do.

Outrageous is one word that springs to mind. This really cant go on...

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

There will be a revolution in Greece I'd say and the government know it which is why they are nervously trying to send signals that they'll attack the people. They can't do it without the army and police and I don't think the army and police will be up for being ordered about by the Troika either.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Ideally the people should just go on General Strike and collapse the Troika deal themselves because the economy would default automatically if it ground to a halt. Short term pain is better than long term torture.

The best thing they could do is withdraw altogether from work and economic activity and collapse the lot from the inside. There is nothing the Greek government could do except resign.

[fluffybiscuits]

There will be a revolution in Greece I'd say and the government know it which is why they are nervously trying to send signals that they'll attack the people. They can't do it without the army and police and I don't think the army and police will be up for being ordered about by the Troika either.

Its on the path alright and the people are getting tense with the amounting pressure. The LaGarde list has a lot of names on it that could act as the firelighter for a revolution, people see others getting away with millions...

http://cironline.org/reports/greeces-diet-crisis-3953

Report on the diet in Greece, cost of fresh produce means people are turning to convenience foods...

[Ephilant]

Outrageous is one word that springs to mind. This really cant go on...

Power and internet just came back on....

Can you give me the link to this new MoU? I assume it's one of the hacked documents from the FinMin? AnonPaste not accessible from Greece. ISPs seem to have blocked the site...

[fluffybiscuits]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20031296

This article sailed over my head and Im surprised. Some prime land near Thessaloniki is being sold to Russian companies for an estimated €200m . The venture is seen as positive and the people who own the land, retired army generals are set to pocked €40m from the sale of the land. Russian tourism is second only to German tourism in Greece and looks set to be expanding. Could this be a blessing in disguise for job creation?