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Greek election result

BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking · 6h 6 hours ago
Exit polls suggest clear victory for anti-austerity Syriza party in Greek general election http://bbc.in/1CTbAhP

BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking · 4h 4 hours ago
Anti-austerity Syriza party to win 149-151 seats in 300-member Greek parliament - official poll projections

BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking · 2h 2 hours ago
Left-wing victor of Greece's election, Syriza's Alexis Tsipras, says: "Today the Greek people wrote history" http://bbc.in/1D7bxzo


Good news? Bad news? Will this encourage voters to choose left-wing parties across Europe?
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Comments

  • I hope it shakes the euro zone to.it's core, but it probably won't make a blind bit of difference to anyone
  • Basket case country. Tax avoidance and govt jobs/pensions for doing next to nothing is a dangerous combination.
    Not a great result for the Euro.
    Rather than default their debts, should be forced to start selling islands.
  • The Greeks might take a leaf out of the Irish book who are taking the pain, and trying to be creative in climbing back, and they are succeeding better than most.
  • edited January 2015
    I suspect a great many people have absolutely no idea just how bad the situation has become in Greece. It is a country on the verge of a humanitarian crisis. We tend to think that they are like us, only a bit worse. But the unemployment figures are staggering and 33% of the population have lost both their social security and health insurance. 18% of the population has no money to buy food.
    The anti austerity party will not have a majority so it is all looking very precarious. The ordinary people deserved so much better than this.
  • Once they have set up a government, coalition or not, it's gong to be a bumpy ride, but hopefully they will be able to break away from the EU and implement the new policies that are needed there. Support from outside is not likely to be forthcoming from EU states and bankers because if Greece can pull this off it will set an example that alternatives to austerity can be implemented.
  • Once they have set up a government, coalition or not, it's gong to be a bumpy ride, but hopefully they will be able to break away from the EU and implement the new policies that are needed there. Support from outside is not likely to be forthcoming from EU states and bankers because if Greece can pull this off it will set an example that alternatives to austerity can be implemented.

    Greece needs to borrow a lot more money just to keep going - the newly elected government want to refuse to pay back what their country owes - that's going to make it a LOT more expensive for the Greeks to borrow in the future.

    The populist anti-austerity stuff might help in winning an election but in the real world there are serious implications if you default on debt repayments - just look at the ruinous state of Argentina.
  • Once they have set up a government, coalition or not, it's gong to be a bumpy ride, but hopefully they will be able to break away from the EU and implement the new policies that are needed there. Support from outside is not likely to be forthcoming from EU states and bankers because if Greece can pull this off it will set an example that alternatives to austerity can be implemented.

    Greece needs to borrow a lot more money just to keep going - the newly elected government want to refuse to pay back what their country owes - that's going to make it a LOT more expensive for the Greeks to borrow in the future.

    The populist anti-austerity stuff might help in winning an election but in the real world there are serious implications if you default on debt repayments - just look at the ruinous state of Argentina.

    Of course that is the usual pattern, but Greek voters have no more tolerance for more of the same so time to try some new policies. There will be opportunities that the new government will actively explore and i think they deserve encouragement.
  • The Greek debt is unsustainable and can never be repaid in full, ever! What are they supposed to do? Just carry on and burden future generations with it? Let's not try and pretend that the troika have done Greece any favours because they haven't. They don't do favours for anyone.

    I am regularly in Athens and have seen the decline happening over the last 5 years or so. Homeless families sleeping rough, people living without any income whatsoever. People living without electricity for 2 years or longer. Pensions reduced to almost nothing. Unemployment at record high levels and no hope whatsoever of getting a job. Shops and businesses closing in huge numbers. Unemployment benefits which stop after 6 months. No medication in hospitals or pharmacies. Nurses who haven't been paid for 2 years who still get up and go to work. Other public sector workers not getting paid.

    Add to this huge troika imposed tax rises and a high cost of living in comparison to earnings and you have a situation that cannot continue. The Greek people have endured a lot and have decided that they cannot take any more of it.

    As for selling off their assets, they already have been doing that for a few years and still got nowhere with the debt. Even the container port at Piraeus has been sold off.

    They need the debt to be re-negotiated or written off or there is no hope for Greece.
  • But the problem is... If they are anti austerity, and have already borrowed everything they can and want to "renegotiate" the debt...

    Who is going to lend them the money to implement this anti austerity?

    If Greece was a business it would have gone bust years ago, it needs to have a complete reformation with regards to public spending/ pensions etc, it is ridiculous.
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  • Do they still retire at 50?
    I thought part of the package of measures was that like the UK the retirement age was on an aggregated scale . 65-69 is it not.? Frankly, it has been so mucked about with I have rather lost track. Although I fear in the UK that it is going up to over 70 after the UK election for younger folk. be interesting if there is much debate about that?
    Seen people mentioning that Unemployment benefit stops after 6 months in Greece, same as the UK then.
    I have no idea how the Greeks get out of the mess they are in, but I am unsure the German's will allow them to default. Simply write part of the debt off.
    With the Spanish and other countries looking on, it will probably come down to refinancing the debt, or it affects the whole Euro currency.
    Last time I was in Athens was almost 4 years ago, then it looked rather shabby, and depressed, been to Greece several times over the decades, alway's found it a rather friendily, but the majority never seemed too worried about tomorrow in those day's I always thought they had the right philosophy....... shows what I know.........


  • I cannot see how you can repay anything with your debt running at 174% of GDP.
    I'd vote the same as the Greeks and to hell with the debt.
    It cannot get much worse for the ordinary Greek chap, although thinking about it, it probably can and will get a lot worse now.
  • I cannot see how you can repay anything with your debt running at 174% of GDP.
    I'd vote the same as the Greeks and to hell with the debt.
    It cannot get much worse for the ordinary Greek chap, although thinking about it, it probably can and will get a lot worse now.

    Precisely. If your debt was 174% of your income you'd probably declare yourself bankrupt and start again. That means no credit for a while though..

    The problem is, even with austerity Greece still can't get tax revenues in because tax is more or less seen as optional in Greece. Ireland had a fine mechanism for raising taxes but just had an asset bubble, Greece has fundamental issues with its economy, meaning it needs its very own special solution, one which Spain and Italy will need to look at closely.
  • They cut off electric to a man's house for owing £800, his mother was inside on a life support machine,

    She died for £800

    Fuck the debt that is not acceptable in 2015 in a European country such as Greece we are not talking about mud hut and field here where there is no electricity

    Greece has hit rock bottom and they might as well try something different,

    Don't pay anything back, jog the euro on and start again
  • They cut off electric to a man's house for owing £800, his mother was inside on a life support machine,

    She died for £800

    Fuck the debt that is not acceptable in 2015 in a European country such as Greece we are not talking about mud hut and field here where there is no electricity

    Greece has hit rock bottom and they might as well try something different,

    Don't pay anything back, jog the euro on and start again

    I suspect that is a result of typical Greek incompetence rather than a mis-placed pursuit of the debt. And here's what the Public Power Corporation of Greece have to say on the matter: "We were given no information about the health status of the woman," a PPC's spokesman said. "Her family hadn't even applied for the special status accorded to people on life support," he added.


    As others have said income tax in Greece is seen as optional. An example of this is that members of the medical profession don't like taking credit cards - cash only please! It is estimated that doctors in Greece only state about a fifth of their income for tax purposes and effectively underpay tax by around €29000 a year!

    The country is so badly run it's a total joke. An anecdotal tale: last time I was in Keflalonia the pool guy (who was British) told me he'd received his water bill a couple of months earlier. This was in respect of the water he'd used for the year before the previous year. He went down to the water company to pay it and they sent him away, saying they weren't yet ready to accept payment. He had tried to pay again but couldn't get them to take his money so he had given up!

    The place is a total shambles - how they ever got to be the cradle of democracy is a mystery.
  • I'm afraid this vote was not about principles and morals etc. and the result (in my opinion) is the right result for Greece. As others have mentioned, Greece would never be able to pay off the debt it owed. As someone who goes to Greece every year, the impact the austerity measures have had on the country has been shocking. Large areas, especially on the islands, have no electricity, no water, no sewerage etc. Services have been stripped back to the bare minimum, unemployment has soared which has led to increased crime levels. People are needlessly dying because the health system cannot afford to treat them and their towns and cities are crumbling around them.....yet Europe and in particular, Germany, just look on.....only interested in making sure they pay their debts! They have paid their debts in more ways than most can imagine.

    I'm not excusing them. A massive change in culture is needed and I think it will happen. This has been a big wake up call to the Greek people, especially the younger generation who want to work and pay taxes etc.

    They could not possibly carry on the way they were. They are definitely in for a 'bumpy ride' as someone else has quoted and the next 12 months will be very hard. But this is a long term vote not a short term fix.

    Crikey....just realised - talk of cut backs, 'nutters' taking charge, services stripped, unemployment, bumpy rides, running things on a shoe string.....Greece's economical situations sounds rather familiar all of a sudden!!! Perhaps RD should take note...the people will vote for change in the end!!!
  • cafcfan said:

    They cut off electric to a man's house for owing £800, his mother was inside on a life support machine,

    She died for £800

    Fuck the debt that is not acceptable in 2015 in a European country such as Greece we are not talking about mud hut and field here where there is no electricity

    Greece has hit rock bottom and they might as well try something different,

    Don't pay anything back, jog the euro on and start again

    I suspect that is a result of typical Greek incompetence rather than a mis-placed pursuit of the debt. And here's what the Public Power Corporation of Greece have to say on the matter: "We were given no information about the health status of the woman," a PPC's spokesman said. "Her family hadn't even applied for the special status accorded to people on life support," he added.


    As others have said income tax in Greece is seen as optional. An example of this is that members of the medical profession don't like taking credit cards - cash only please! It is estimated that doctors in Greece only state about a fifth of their income for tax purposes and effectively underpay tax by around €29000 a year!

    The country is so badly run it's a total joke. An anecdotal tale: last time I was in Keflalonia the pool guy (who was British) told me he'd received his water bill a couple of months earlier. This was in respect of the water he'd used for the year before the previous year. He went down to the water company to pay it and they sent him away, saying they weren't yet ready to accept payment. He had tried to pay again but couldn't get them to take his money so he had given up!

    The place is a total shambles - how they ever got to be the cradle of democracy is a mystery.
    That was over two thousand years ago so it's not really that relevant to what's going on to-day.
  • some one still came and disconnected electricity to a house with a woman on a life support machine in it, i refuse to believe that never knew or the family never said it
  • cafcfan said:

    They cut off electric to a man's house for owing £800, his mother was inside on a life support machine,

    She died for £800

    Fuck the debt that is not acceptable in 2015 in a European country such as Greece we are not talking about mud hut and field here where there is no electricity

    Greece has hit rock bottom and they might as well try something different,

    Don't pay anything back, jog the euro on and start again

    I suspect that is a result of typical Greek incompetence rather than a mis-placed pursuit of the debt. And here's what the Public Power Corporation of Greece have to say on the matter: "We were given no information about the health status of the woman," a PPC's spokesman said. "Her family hadn't even applied for the special status accorded to people on life support," he added.


    As others have said income tax in Greece is seen as optional. An example of this is that members of the medical profession don't like taking credit cards - cash only please! It is estimated that doctors in Greece only state about a fifth of their income for tax purposes and effectively underpay tax by around €29000 a year!

    The country is so badly run it's a total joke. An anecdotal tale: last time I was in Keflalonia the pool guy (who was British) told me he'd received his water bill a couple of months earlier. This was in respect of the water he'd used for the year before the previous year. He went down to the water company to pay it and they sent him away, saying they weren't yet ready to accept payment. He had tried to pay again but couldn't get them to take his money so he had given up!

    The place is a total shambles - how they ever got to be the cradle of democracy is a mystery.
    That was over two thousand years ago so it's not really that relevant to what's going on to-day.
    Well, you say that, but I've just been listening to David Starkey talking about an 800-year-old document - the Great Charter - advertising tonight's TV show no doubt!

    It provide property rights which are still better than those afforded to citizens in Russia or China today. My point was how could a country go from getting things right all those years ago to what is happening now. (I expect Greek plumbing was better then too!)
  • cafcfan said:

    cafcfan said:

    They cut off electric to a man's house for owing £800, his mother was inside on a life support machine,

    She died for £800

    Fuck the debt that is not acceptable in 2015 in a European country such as Greece we are not talking about mud hut and field here where there is no electricity

    Greece has hit rock bottom and they might as well try something different,

    Don't pay anything back, jog the euro on and start again

    I suspect that is a result of typical Greek incompetence rather than a mis-placed pursuit of the debt. And here's what the Public Power Corporation of Greece have to say on the matter: "We were given no information about the health status of the woman," a PPC's spokesman said. "Her family hadn't even applied for the special status accorded to people on life support," he added.


    As others have said income tax in Greece is seen as optional. An example of this is that members of the medical profession don't like taking credit cards - cash only please! It is estimated that doctors in Greece only state about a fifth of their income for tax purposes and effectively underpay tax by around €29000 a year!

    The country is so badly run it's a total joke. An anecdotal tale: last time I was in Keflalonia the pool guy (who was British) told me he'd received his water bill a couple of months earlier. This was in respect of the water he'd used for the year before the previous year. He went down to the water company to pay it and they sent him away, saying they weren't yet ready to accept payment. He had tried to pay again but couldn't get them to take his money so he had given up!

    The place is a total shambles - how they ever got to be the cradle of democracy is a mystery.
    That was over two thousand years ago so it's not really that relevant to what's going on to-day.
    Well, you say that, but I've just been listening to David Starkey talking about an 800-year-old document - the Great Charter - advertising tonight's TV show no doubt!

    It provide property rights which are still better than those afforded to citizens in Russia or China today. My point was how could a country go from getting things right all those years ago to what is happening now. (I expect Greek plumbing was better then too!)
    I won't pretend to know a great deal about Greece, however from talking to Greek colleagues over the last 10 years, I've learnt that it had significant cultural problems which meant it should never have been admitted to the EU in the first place. Corruption is significantly worse than in Central European ex communist countries, and by Western standards, that is some going, to "achieve" that. The cash under the table approach of doctors which you mention is just an example.

    The previous right wing administration did sod all to address this problem. But were they under pressure to do so? not as far as I can see. They were simply told to cut their state budget. Any idiot can do that, especially if he doesn't have to bear the burden. Who bears the burden? of course the ordinary poorer people, like the poor lady whose fate @nth london addick is rightly angry about.

    A good thing about Britain is that corruption is at a very low level (albeit, it could be improved) and that is true of Ireland too, that is why you cannot expect Greece to simply do an Ireland. I don't think you can understand the effect corruption has on a society unless you've experienced it, as I have in the last 20 years here.

    Will Syriza address it? I doubt it. I don't hear it as being top of their to-do list. But neither do I hear the troika putting it top of their to-do list either. I'm not surprised because if they are going to set anti-corruption targets for Greece they would have to set them for a much bigger member of the EU too.

    Italy.
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  • Clearly there has been huge suffering in Greece post austerity, the posts above are testament to that.

    The problem is that you really cannot have your cake and eat it - yes, there will need to be some debt forgiveness and restructuring - but the EU cannot be too lenient because the Spanish, Italians and Portuguese will be watching closely and will want similar deals if their own woes continue.

    That's to say nothing of the Irish who have taken some very, very bitter medicine of their own and are starting to turn the corner - why should they do it tough and the Greeks get a soft option?

    Ultimately the Greek government took billions in loans to support an unsustainable system - there is short term gain for Syriza in sticking two fingers up at the EU and the bankers but in the real world the consequences of doing that are ruinous.

    Greece needs cash just to keep running - would you borrow them money if they had told their previous lenders to go fuck themselves?
  • The thing is, with all his rhetoric Tsipras is never going to be able to make his manifesto work, he promises to up the minimum wage, re-hire public sector workers, reduce taxes etc, however they don't have any money... has no one who voted worked this out.
    If they don't pay back the money, it would appear that the only option is to kick them out of the eurozone.
  • Example of the why they are in trouble.

    Your typical single decker bus would have a driver, a conductor issuing ticket plus a ticket checker who would rip the issued ticket in half.

    All on final salary pension collectable at 50
  • Stig said:

    The World's economic system is completely and utterly bonkers. The world's richest 1% are worth $110trillion. That is 65 (sixty-five) times as much as the poorest half of the World. "Despite the austerity affecting ordinary people around the globe in the wake of the recession, the richest 85 billionaires saw their fortunes increase by a total of around £150 billion over the past year - the equivalent of £415 million a day or almost a third of a million pounds a minute"* The UN estimates that on a world wide basis 21,000 (twenty one thousand) people die of hunger or hunger related causes every day.

    Such disparity cannot be explained by the 1% working harder, or being cleverer, or somehow gaining such a massive share through merit. It can only be explained by the the fact that the system we live under is utterly fucking obscene. Before we get to carried away with arguments about the Greeks being lazy premature-retirees, it is worth remembering that in the UK we are lucky to have good natural resources and a major financial hub. Without those things, we may well find ourselves in a similar position to the Greeks. Good luck to them for voting anti-austerity. The simple fact of the matter is that the whole system needs a shake up. I hope others follow their lead.

    *Daily Mail 30/10/2014

    Yeah, sure, the system's broken but that's down to a lack of meaningful population control more than anything else.

    Take India for example, from 300 BC up to 1600 the population was fairly stable at 100 million. As recently as 1990 it was still "only" 850 million; it's now 1,250 million. For even a rich country that level of increase in population is unsustainable.

    The thing about the World's richest 1% is that it's still around 70 million people.

    The BBC's head of statistics, (yes they really have one of those!) Anthony Reuben, said: "In order to be part of the wealthiest 1% of the world's population, an individual would need to be worth just over half a million pounds. So it is not necessarily talking about people who own yachts and ski chalets. Owning an average house in London would just about put an individual in the 1%."

    So, do we really want better distribution of wealth or would we like to keep our houses?
  • Two problems really. 1) The Greeks' attitude towards paying tax and their entitlement to an income, and 2) The EU's decision to allow them into the Eurozone.

    Even a cursory look at the Greek economy pre-Euro would have made it clear what a basket case it was. Unsustainably high levels of state-spending to support its population barely working at a 10th of its full potential, with similarly unsustainable levels of tax avoidance/evasion. The attitude was and still is that tax is largely optional and as long as you're making a token contribution then that's OK. The only thing that was allowing this farce to continue was that Greece still had the power to fiddle with monetary & fiscal policy as it pleased in order to keep the whole charade going. This was, by no means, a system that could have carried on forever but their ownership of their own currency was at least allowing them to continue living this dream for a few more decades before they might have had to consider a reality check.

    It's no secret that their numbers to be admitted into the Eurozone were completely fudged and that deception on a scale that'd make Arthur Andersen blush. The EU was also willing to overlook the fact that the numbers were not independently verified despite the suspiciously rosy image painted of a golden age of Greek economic boom, mainly due to the fact that it was politically more useful to get Greece on board now and to worry about the finer points such as whether such a move would very quickly destroy Greece's economic capabilities later.

    This election has shown one thing - Greece wants to go back to the glory days of printing its own money and to continue spending like it was going out of fashion. Should they decide to default and cancel their debts akin to a bankrupt, the ramifications for its export industry are likely to be hugely damaging but a Eurozone exit could allow a new, debt-free state to rise from the ashes. There is nothing left of Greece apart from its people, who all owe on average €30,000 to its international creditors. It'd be interesting to see how legally a state could shirk its international debt commitments, but private corporations across the globe seem to achieve similar black magic when times are tough. No reason why a state can't do the same.
  • Amazingly they've formed a coalition with the Independents. Oh how these politicos whore themselves just for the power.

    It would be like George Galloway and Nigel Farage forming the next Government.
  • Addickted said:

    Amazingly they've formed a coalition with the Independents. Oh how these politicos whore themselves just for the power.

    It would be like George Galloway and Nigel Farage forming the next Government.

    Well one's a racist loony who is an embarrassment to the country...

    And the other's called Nigel.
  • @Fiiish‌

    "It's no secret that their numbers to be admitted into the Eurozone were completely fudged and that deception on a scale that'd make Arthur Andersen blush. "

    It didn't make Goldman Sachs blush though. They did the numbers. Didn't you know that?

    Criminal organisation.
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