On the draft budget, regenerating Athens, property tax, Costas Simits
Property taxes
Like everything else in Greece, the property taxes are quite unfair. If you study Attica for instance, you will see some areas with very low tax rates but with villas selling at very high prices, which means black money in the sellers? pockets and other areas with high taxes that nobody can sell at these rates, and so they will be penalised. Apart from this there are many of us (just check the international property websites) trying to sell offices, shops, factories, villas and apartments and nobody in Greece or abroad is interested in purchasing. This is because we read every day that sooner or later we will default. Rents have already decreased by 30% and many properties by more. We have lowered our price by 50% but banks are not giving mortgages to private buyers, whatever may be said in the media. This is a small property but anyone with a high mortgage on a villa just cannot sell and downgrade. We are all in circle with no way out. Having lived in Greece for 35 years I said last year we had to withdraw from the euro, this is not possible in Greece. OK we would have lost 50% at least on our currency but at least we would have had buyers and our exports and tourism would have given us growth. I do not think that the Troika or the Greek Government realise just what a serious state we are in, for sure New Democracy doesn?t or they wouldn?t be acting so foolishly but would have joined the Government in pushing through the public worker reforms. Private workers and private business people are tired of supporting the PASOK voters.
Ann Baker
Neo Iraklio
Re: Simitis?s article
If I were Mr Simitis, I would continue to stay low-profile.
Instead he writes an article as if he has nothing to do with his country’s situation today.
Isn’t he the major culprit who cheated Greece into the eurozone? We still remember his trip together with the president of the Bank of Greece to New York in 2001 in order to negotiate a deal with Goldman Sachs which provided him with $5 billion for a fee of $350 million, the latter being still investigated in the US. This money has been declared in the state?s balance sheet as «currency swap? instead of being booked as «debts?. By doing so, the prime minister had manipulated one of the major three criteria to get into the financial union, i.e. to stay under the limit of 3% of GDP as regards new debts in a fiscal year. And this was done by a prime minister who was a professor of economics knowing exactly what he was doing. But obviously, he wanted to enter history books as the PM who led Greece into the eurozone.
Today he writes as if he has nothing to to do with the actual situation when under his eight years of premiership the country?s debt went up from ?100 billion to ?180 billion.
Instead of admitting his responsibility he spreads banalities like the exit of Greece from the eurozone would be catastrophic, and worse, he predicts such an exit at the latest in 2014 unless drastic measures are taken. What measures he does not say. Why 2014? It will probably happen much earlier if the agreed upon promises and meassures are not taken.
I can only say: «Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses!? (If you had remained silent you would have remained a philosopher.)
Gerhard Fischer
Athens
Draft budget
Is the Government happy with the success of its policy dictated by the Troika?
181% debt to GDP ratio in 2012! Increase in property taxes of 200%.
Increasing crime, increasing unemployment, the medicine is not working. You cannot get blood from stones.
Alexandros Dearges-Chantler
Regeneration scheme for city center
Can these politicians come up with a concise, clear and manageable bill that will encourage everyone to participate and do the right thing?
The first step in the right direction is to round up all the illegal aliens and send them back where they came from. People get killed, hurt and robbed on a daily basis. Who is crazy enough to go refurbish a house in the eye of the storm with a law that is so confusing from the get go that allows all sorts of misunderstanding? Who is going to pay for improvements and betterments on real estate when this is surrounded by crime?
A few months ago Mr Pangalos gave us a list of some myths and one truth about the center which tells me that somehow someone told him about the havoc the drug sellers, addicts, prostitutes pimps and other assorted criminals wreak on the residents of the center. What has been done so far?
The only time the mayor of Athens took action was to remove the tents of the ?indignants? since that was so close to the rich hotels where the elite stays.
Between the crime in the center of Athens and the exhorbitan taxes imposed on homeowners, pretty soon everyone who can will move back to the villages and the islands and then the entire city will be overun by the criminal element.
Let us not pretend down the road that no one knew or understood how serious the situation is and how much worse it will become.
Monica Lane
Florida
Mr Papandreou should resign
Two years on since PASOK won the elections Greece is far worse than ever before. Mr Papandreou is a weak leader. Before the elections he said we have the money, answers and solutions. He keeps telling world media outlets he is committed to changing Greece.
So what has changed?
Thousands of young educated Greeks are leaving Greece, he has failed to put corrupt politicians in jail, he has failed to go after the rich who have sent their money overseas, more businesses have shut down since he took over, the crime rate is far worse, there are now more suicides, and soup kitchens for the poor. Greece will continue to experience negative growth.
He has failed to cut Greece?s disfunctional Parliament of 300 members to say 200 members and lead by example. There are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants sending euros overseas and draining the Greek economy. By the time the fence is built in Evros thousands of illegals will continue to make their way to Athens. Where is Greece?s 100,000 Army personnel, why aren?t they on the the borders? Afterall, PASOK did sign Dublin II.
On the diplomatic front, Mr Panandreou calls Turkish PM Erdogan a ?friend? — this is a man threatening Cyprus. We then have his deputy PM, Mr Pangalos, publicly stating that he cannot afford to pay the 17,500 tax on his properties. This is a man who has 600,000 euros in the bank plus numerous private properties. So what is the message here?
Mr Papandreou should resign and move on.
George Salamouras
Private sector participation
The so-called PSI has been, at best, a joke so far! PSI-PR successfully created the impression that banks would forgo 21% of their loans to Greece. The deal is far from that. They have calculated net present values of loans including the interest margin thereon. When one cuts through these complicated calculations, the percentage of nominal loans which the banks would forgo is more like 10% (or a just a little more than that).
Even the full 21% would be a joke. We are talking about sovereign debt which is presently traded in the market at around 50%. That is based on small volumes. No one could tell what price the banks would generate if they unloaded large chunks of their Greek loans in the market.
?Mark-to-market? is an important principle of bank financial accounting. Banks should be forced to write down their assets to market prices, say 50% of nominal. If they can?t handle that at one time, they should be given up to 10 years to absorb those write-downs. No dividend payments during this time. If they can?t even handle that, they should be liquidated in orderly fashion (like Hypo Real Estate).
If banks don?t want to play along, the governments should say: ?OK; that?s fine with us but then you are on your own. Should you get into trouble, we will have to take you over and your shareholders lose everything. Before you do that, you better check that with your shareholders.?
Klaus Kastner
Austria
Regeneration scheme for city center
The regeneration scheme for city center should focus on a 6 square kilometer area at the foot of the 3 hills opposite the Acropolis, according to my building designs. All current buildings within this zone would be demolished and residents would all move to other areas of the city, to make way for a New Athens Area that will be the epitome of Greek culture, reflecting in an architectural form — the glories and triumphs of ancient Greece and the triumphs of Greek civilisation throughout the ages — which will provide Athens and Greece with dynamic, vibrant, and confident Greece moving forward into the future. The New Athens Area Zone would set the architectural standards in Greece for generations to come. And it can all be paid for by the proceeds from the gas reserves found in the Aegean. This construction project will simultaneously provide a lifesaving boost to many parts of the crippled and depressed Greek economy, impacting the Greek economy instantly in a positive manner, by providing the lifesaving injection which the Greek economy currently requires to stabilize and start moving again in an upward direction which will be very posiitive for everyone in Greece and the European Union.
Building Designer – Gerry Mavre-Yanaki
ECJ ruling not so good for Nova
If you understand the selling of TV rights and if you are the Premier League, you will stop selling the rights to Nova because you will not want to lose the top revenue your English broadcaster is paying you….
So you may decide to sell the rights, at an even higher fee, to the UK broadcaster and let them decide if they want to resell to Nova or market directly into Greece.
The whole current model is in the spotlight as Premier League charges are different to Nova and to Sky because they are different markets, different size… If now Nova and Sky can go head to head, the Premier League will want to protect its main partner Sky as that?s where the highest revenue comes from.
Interesting times.
Alfonso
Medina
Greece can make money
I am a British woman, just listening to the news. I heard that the Greeks may get charged an extra tax on their electricity bills, to pay for the ?bankers? debt?.
But Greece is missing a big trick here. There you all are basking in all that Greek sunshine. Why not have every Greek house install solar panels. Make it government-run policy, so that every house has to have one on their roof and the government would own the electricity. Soon you will be producing so much that you could be selling it to Europe. Forget the Polish and Russian gas fields. There you all are, with all that solar energy that you can just tap into. You could have solar panels on office blocks, in olive orchards, anywhere. All making money for the country. To pay off the debt.
Here we are in Britain wondering whether we should invest in nuclear power stations. But we would much rather have green energy. And there you are? you could make so much money from Britain alone. It could easily pay off the debt.
I love Greece, don?t let the big corporations and bankers grind you down.
Paula Wibrew
London
Draft budget deal blow to homeowners
I believe that both Greece and Greeks are in need of some tough love.
The current Greek PASOK party government won the last elections by promising voters social benefits that only Saudi Arabia and the rich Arab Emirates could afford. It then kept borrowing and spending without nary a thought of how it will pay back the loans — until Fitch started downgrading Greek bonds. Then, PASOK, fearing that if it made serious cuts to balance the GDP and pay foreign debt it may lose the next elections, dragged its feet with cosmetic cuts to satisfy lenders and continue the borrowing and spending spree. The trivial Greek cuts didn?t make a dent in the debt load, and Reuters reports today that the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF won?t disburse until November the funds promised to Greece for next week — until Greece proves cuts in spending were already made. No more Greek empty promises; EU, ECB and IMF inspectors teams in Greece last week verified that Greek officials were fibbing.
Greeks used to get public loafing jobs from politicians, they thought the jobs were secure for life, and they didn?t bother to save. They reveled on weekends in nightclubs like the mythical Dionysus, smashed plates, platters, bottles and everything, paid with money the government had borrowed to pay their salaries, and bragged to co-workers on Monday that they lived like Arabian princes! Hundreds of Greek songs idolize those who ?smash everything? in clubs at night — much like Mexican songs idolize the glamorous lives of drug kingpins! But drug kingpins spend their own wealth — not borrowed money!
Most honest Greeks — including myself — admit that ?We spread the civilization, but we remained uncivilized ourselves!? Now the EU, the ECB and the IMF have forced Greece into a financial boot-camp! And given the massive debts they have amassed, their re-education in financial responsibility would surely take 2-3 years. And the standard textbook in the boot-camp should be Aesop?s fable ?The Grasshopper and the Ant.?
As for their current and expected long-lasting misery, the adage is clear: ?You broke it, you own it!?
Nikos Retsos, retired professor
A view of Athens
As a South African of Greek origin I visit Athens and other locations around Greece annually. I do so not only because I have family in Greece, but because the longing within me to return to the mother country is as strong in the third generation as it was for my grandparents who emigrated to South Africa in times of hardship.
Experiencing Athens as a citizen of a developing country, I am most concerned at the erosion of first world standards that is taking place in the Greek capital. Aware as I am of the economic crisis, I cannot hide my shock at the condition of the inner city with particular reference to the area around Omonia Square and the neighbourhood of Kypseli which would be deemed unacceptable in South Africa not to mention Greece, a member of the EU and presumably a first world country.
Living as I do in a dangerous country, I always considered Greece a safe haven where the worst crime imaginable was pickpocketing or the occasional bank robbery. Indeed, for many years Greece was a wonderfully liberating country to visit because despite not being very affluent the people lived with dignity and respect for one another and the possessions of their fellow citizens. I can only assume that the crime wave sweeping the country is the direct result of non-Greeks taking advantage of their status as refugees to prey upon the honest citizens who have lived on Greek soil for millennia. This situation must be reversed immediately — if not, the wave of crime will never cease and the Greek way of life will be destroyed.
The Greek political system is the subject of international condemnation and I scarcely have to repeat what others have so eloquently stated about the so-called Greek government: again, it wouldn?t be out of place in Africa. My heart goes out to the poor people of Greece who are so unfairly bearing the brunt of austerity. I would also appeal to all Greek expats visiting the country: If you know of someone who is in dire straits, be they a relative or someone you happen to meet on your trip, be a good friend and take the person out for a nice meal or even a coffee — your kindness will not go forgotten in these trying time.
Finally, I appeal to all Greeks — proud and civilised people as you are — stand up against crime, corruption and illegal immigration. Stand together to reclaim your country, your political system and your way of life that has made Greek culture the envy of so many around the world. Greece must be reclaimed for the Greeks and it must happen today!
Paul Pappandreou
Cape Town, South Africa
Incentives for Athens cental core
Tax breaks are a good thing but none of these measures will work until the police are given a greater mandate and authority to combat the drug dealers, pimps and criminals roaming the streets of Athens. A strong show and support of law and order is necessary to reduce the gradual decline of downtown Athens.
Nick Lakoumentas
