...THE FACULTY OF ECONOMICS LJUBLJANA THE CRISIS IN GREECE subject: TAXES MAY 2013 TAXES THE CRISIS IN GREECE author: P.Fux Contents INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 3 GENESIS OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS (USA) ................................................................. 3 THE TIPPING POINT ........................................................................................................... 3 IMPACT OF BANKING CRISIS ON EU - DEVELOPMENT OF FISCAL CRISIS .............. 4 WHAT HAPPENED IN GREECE............................................................................................. 4 DEBT IS HER OLDEST COMPANION ............................................................................... 5 CRISIS HAS SHOWN FIRST EFFECTS.............................................................................. 5 HOW MARKETS SAW GREECE ........................................................................................ 6 GREECE'S PROBLEMS SINCE THE CRISIS HAS ARISEN and BAILOUTS ..................... 7 The huge numbers of Greece's debt in pictures (2012) ...................................................... 9 A FEW WORDS ABOUT GREECE'S RATIOS ..................................................................... 10 THE GOVERNMENT SPENDINGS ..............................................................
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...The economy of Greece is the 27th largest economy in the world by gross domestic product & thirty third largest by purchasing power parity according to the data given by International Monetary Fund in 2008. But amidst this suddenly you could see news flashing everywhere about the Greece being declared bankrupt & its efforts to cope up with this problem. Now you wonder what is this crisis all about? In other words we can say that Greece had continuously borrowed funds from other countries exceeding its repaying capacity. In the beginning of 2010, it was discovered that since 2001 Greece had paid Goldman Sachs & other banks hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for arranging transactions that will hide the actual level of borrowing. Also, they made unrestrained expenses, provided cheap lending, were unable to recover taxes from its citizens & overspent on state pension plans. The main factor for the crisis is the high number of residents who purposely avoid tax, particularly the wealthy, starving the government of the cash that it needs to provide a sufficient level of public service. Another notable factor is the Greek tendency to be a little over generous with the state pension provisions to the elderly which although is a pleasant gesture in principle, left a large ongoing liability to the taxpayer. The ongoing struggle for the Greek government to balance the books only came to light when the boom stopped amidst the global financial crisis. Suddenly unemployment...
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...Poor's and Moody's credit ratings have been lowered Greece's sovereign Greek debt crisis kicked off. With sovereign credit rating was lowered, the Greek government borrowing costs increase sharply. Greek government had to take austerity measures in Greece held another round of strike activity, economic development worse. Until February 2012, Greece, Germany and France and other countries still rely on rescue loans to survive. In addition to Greece, the financial situation of Portugal, Ireland and Spain and other countries also attracted attention from investors, European countries sovereign credit rating was lowered. Greece was just entering the euro zone. According to the provisions of some countries of the European Community signed in 1992 "Maastricht Treaty", the European Economic Monetary Union member states must meet two key standards, namely the budget deficit it can not exceed 3 percent of GDP, the debt ratio below 60% of gross domestic product. However, the accession of Greece just to see yourself far away from these two criteria. This alliance Greece and the euro zone is not a good thing. Especially in the euro began to depreciate as soon as they come out of the time. Then he turned to the Greek American investment bank "Goldman Sachs." Goldman Greece to design a "currency swaps" way for the Greek government to cover up the sum of up to 1 billion euros of public debt, so that Greece in the book in...
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...International Political Economy - July 2011 Greece has been experiencing severe fiscal challenges for the past decade. The country’s economic and political situation has reached crisis level thus propelling it into the global lime-light, dominating headlines in print and electronic media. This essay seeks to explain the crisis and explore the implications for Greece, the European Union and the international political economy, should continued assistance not forthcoming. The source of Creek’s debt crisis is both domestic and international. Domestically, analysts point to high government spending, weak revenue collection, and structural rigidities in the economy. This affected the state’s ability to fund government budget and current account deficits, resulting in profound borrowing. As the situation progressed for the worst, the Creek economy relied heavily on international capital markets, which only aided in making the country extremely vulnerable to any shifts in investor confidence. Access to capital at low interest rates after adopting the euro, and weak enforcement of European Union (EU) rules concerning debt and deficit ceilings facilitated Greece’s accumulating high levels of external debt. In October 2009 investors became jittery due to the actions of the newly elected government in revising the estimate of the government budget deficit for 2009 from 6.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) to 12.7% of GDP (Nelson et al., 2010). A few months later, however, in April...
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...Code civil Titre préliminaire : De la publication, des effets et de l'application des lois en général Article 1 Les lois et, lorsqu'ils sont publiés au Journal officiel de la République française, les actes administratifs entrent en vigueur à la date qu'ils fixent ou, à défaut, le lendemain de leur publication. Toutefois, l'entrée en vigueur de celles de leurs dispositions dont l'exécution nécessite des mesures d'application est reportée à la date d'entrée en vigueur de ces mesures. En cas d'urgence, entrent en vigueur dès leur publication les lois dont le décret de promulgation le prescrit et les actes administratifs pour lesquels le Gouvernement l'ordonne par une disposition spéciale. Les dispositions du présent article ne sont pas applicables aux actes individuels. Article 2 La loi ne dispose que pour l'avenir ; elle n'a point d'effet rétroactif. Article 3 Les lois de police et de sûreté obligent tous ceux qui habitent le territoire. Les immeubles, même ceux possédés par des étrangers, sont régis par la loi française. Les lois concernant l'état et la capacité des personnes régissent les Français, même résidant en pays étranger. Article 4 Le juge qui refusera de juger, sous prétexte du silence, de l'obscurité ou de l'insuffisance de la loi, pourra être poursuivi comme coupable de déni de justice. Article 5 Dernière modification du texte le 01 janvier 2016 - Document généré le 08 janvier 2016 - Copyright (C) 2007-2016 Legifrance Il est...
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...of euro zone member, Greece. Once considered as a financially stable country, Greece is now on the edge of having a financial default. With a debt total amounting to an estimated $420 billion, experts say that this debt would have been bigger that the country’s economy itself and this debt is predicted to increase as time goes by because Greece spends 12% more than it gets revenues. So what’s exactly went wrong with Greece and how did they get themselves in deep trouble? One main cause for this is the country going on an uncontrolled spending binge which relies on debt to be sustained. One prestigious project they paid for over its budget limit is the 2004 Athens Olympics. Add that up to the failure of implementing consistent economic reforms and lending with despicable returns eventually led Greece vulnerable to a debt crisis. In result of this, Fitch ratings agency cuts Greece’s credit rating from an A- to a BBB+, first time in 10 years that the country has seen its ratings below an A grade. This will prove to be a big blow to the country as it now pushes up the cost of borrowing money. It will also be viewed by their foreign investors as a financial void as they would be given lower interest payments for their investments. To try and cope up with this downfall, the government stated its plans on making some harsh cuts on their budget. As this debt crisis develops, thousands of Greek workers went on a strike to protest these austerity measures Greece is willing to go for...
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...www.capitalvia.com Global Research Limited IMPACT of GREECE White Paper - Impact of Greece Crisis Global Research Limited Introduction Historically, financial crisis tend to lead to sharp economic downturns, low government revenues, widening government deficits, high levels of debt, pushing many governments into defaults. This is called SOVEREGIN DEBT CRISIS. GREECE is currently facing this, it accumulated high levels of debt during the decade before the crisis, when capital markets were highly liquid. As the crisis has unfolded and there was liquidity crunch in world economy, Greece may no longer be able to rol over its maturing debt obligations. Build – Up To The Current Crisis Between 2001-2008, Greece reported budget deficits averaged 5% per year, compared to Eurozone average of 2%. Also, its current account deficits averaged to 9% per year compared to Eurozone average of 1% Greece funded these twin deficits by borrowing in international capital markets, leaving it with chronically high external debt (115% of GDP in 2009) Some of the facts which can be depicted from following charts : www.capitalvia.com 2 White Paper - Impact of Greece Crisis Global Research Limited How Country Debts And Budget Deficits Compare? Projected budget deficit for 2009 Budget deficit figs as % of GDP Debt as % of GDP UK 13% Greece 12.5% Spain 11.25% Ireland 54.3% 68.6% 112.6% 65.8% 10.75% 114.6% 5.3% Italy Germany 3.5% 74.3% Source:...
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...Greece – Crisis and Solutions Paper International Economics Greece - Crisis and Solutions June 25, 2013 Content 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………2 2. Greece joining the Eurozone…...............................................................................3 3. Budget structure that lead to the crisis…………………………………………………………………6 4. Supporting and rescue measures…………………………………………………………………………9 5. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………….11 6. References……………………………………………............................................................13 1 1. Introduction In the last years the severe debt crisis of Greece has posed a large challenge to the member states of the Eurozone. It is threatening the stability of the European Monetary Union (EMU). After having piled up over 300 Billion Euros of debt, in 2010 the market mistrust in Greece dramatically increased, especially as the newly elected government revealed the incorrectness of the financial statistics of previous years. Finally, on the 23rd of April 2010, Greece was threatened by national bankruptcy and requested help of the other Eurozone members and the International Monetary Fund. Although Greece is one of the smaller economies of the Eurozone, its daring default has great effects on the whole community. Now then, what happen if Greece “Grexit”? The Pros are that a return to the old currency like the Drachma would have the effect of depreciate in value, it would become more competitively in...
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...Background: As the consequence of the 2008 U.S. banking crisis, Europe was hit by one of the worst debt crisis. Starting from Greece in autumn 2009, the crisis spread to other European countries, especially Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal and forced European policy makers to take many actions to limit its consequences (BOG, 2014, p.42). While others European economies such as Spain, Portugal avoided the severe crisis by following advisory strategy like austerity, reducing public spending…, Greece situation did not improved. To help Greece improve its situation, the IMF and Eurozone governments sealed a deal for two bailouts in 2010 and 2012, totalling €240 billion. On July 5, 2015 the majority of Greek citizens voted to reject the Europe’s plan to bail out the country’s economy, which caused the fear about the potential exit from the European Union, Greece’s future and world economy as well. Despite that fact, Eurozone leaders still reached an agreement on a third bailout programme to save Greece from bankruptcy on July 13. Although Greece overcame the severe situation, there is no indicator that the crisis will stop. This essay will discuss Greek situation involving 3 main issues, which are mistakes leading to crisis, financial regulation and the role of banks, potential financial contagion and moral hazard. Discussion: 1. Mistakes leading to crisis: One of mistakes leading to crisis was supposed to involve economic statistical data fraud. According to a comprehensive...
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...CHAPTER 3 : The global financial and economic crisis 3.1. The global financial and economic crisis has revealed the macroeconomic imbalances and structural weaknesses of the Greek economy. The global economy is in the midst of its most severe financial and economic crisis since the 1930s. The strong turbulence that started in the United States in August 2007 and spilled over to the rest of the world is continuing for the second year running, with occasional episodes of intensification. The persistence of the financial turmoil has caused the global outlook for output, employment and trade to deteriorate rapidly, especially during the last few months. At the current phase, developments in the financial and the real sectors of the global economy form a negative feedback loop, whereby the dysfunctioning of financial markets squeeze activity and, in turn, the fall in economic activity further undermines the capital position of the financial sector and its ability to finance enterprises and households. Exit from this vicious circle will not be easy or fast. The global crisis has negatively affected the Greek economy, especially since the intensification of the crisis in September 2008. The growth rate of the Greek economy, which had been steadily high since the second half of the 1990s, decelerated markedly in 2008, while economic activity is projected to stagnate in 2009. The financial crisis is affecting economic activity in Greece in two ways: on the one hand, the tightening...
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...of euro zone member, Greece. Once considered as a financially stable country, Greece is now on the edge of having a financial default. With a debt total amounting to an estimated $420 billion, experts say that this debt would have been bigger that the country’s economy itself and this debt is predicted to increase as time goes by because Greece spends 12% more than it gets revenues. So what’s exactly went wrong with Greece and how did they get themselves in deep trouble? One main cause for this is the country going on an uncontrolled spending binge which relies on debt to be sustained. One prestigious project they paid for over its budget limit is the 2004 Athens Olympics. Add that up to the failure of implementing consistent economic reforms and lending with despicable returns eventually led Greece vulnerable to a debt crisis. In result of this, Fitch ratings agency cuts Greece’s credit rating from an A- to a BBB+, first time in 10 years that the country has seen its ratings below an A grade. This will prove to be a big blow to the country as it now pushes up the cost of borrowing money. It will also be viewed by their foreign investors as a financial void as they would be given lower interest payments for their investments. To try and cope up with this downfall, the government stated its plans on making some harsh cuts on their budget. As this debt crisis develops, thousands of Greek workers went on a strike to protest these austerity measures Greece is willing to go for...
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...Greece's Debt Crisis Greece is a country in financial peril. A series of missteps and misguidance led them to become a burden for the rest of the world to endure. Corruption and pitfalls fueled a downfall that may never be repaid to the residents of Greece, or to the European Union who were forced to bail them out. The question is, however, how all of this happened? It all started in the 2000's with the adoption of the Euro. It was one of the first countries to do so, under the pretense that it had achieved "economic convergence" with the other countries involved. Upon launch, the Euro surpassed the dollar in value, and Greece saw access to cheap capital, giving confidence to their investors. The investors took advantage of this, and accumulated massive public debt despite the EU claiming it would prevent so from happening. Then, in 2002, it became clear that Greece was among others under false pretenses. Greece had cooked its books to enter into the brotherhood this new currency offered. Exact numbers were not revealed until 2004, when it became knowledge that Greece had understated its budget deficit by 6.8%. This number is staggering, considering the acceptable budget deficit is only 3% to begin with. Yet as the Olympic games approached, the Greek government decided to do nothing, and say nothing, rather than address the problem at hand. Soon, the crisis was in full swing. By 2007 the crisis had started to affect not only Greece, who was hit the hardest, but also the...
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...Greece is a developed country with a capitalist economy. The economy of Greece is based on service sector (85%), tourism (15%), and industry (12%), while the agricultural sector consists only 3% of the national economic output. Greece has a high standard of living, its GDP per capita is about two-thirds of the largest European economies. Greece entered the eurozone in 2000, before 2009, Greece had 14 years of consecutive economic growth. However, since 2009 Greece has been experiencing a recession. The recession was caused from debt accumulating from government borrowing and spending, and not enough tax revenues. Since Greece is part of the Eurozone, it must abide by the European Union’s requirements such as, the government budget deficit cannot exceed 3% and the debt to GDP ratio cannot exceed 60%.Greece has had an inflation rate above 4% and budget deficit of 6-10% of GDP, with the highest being 15/7% in 2010. The debt to GDP of Greece exceed 60% in 2012, it was 70.3 higher. As a result, Greece has implement contractionary fiscal policies to help control its inflation and budget deficits. As the Greek economy undergoes an extended period of economic and political turmoil, bold and committed policy actions were critically needed to restore fiscal sustainability, enhance labor market flexibility, and tackle systemic corruption. As shown in the Greek debt comparison to Eurozone average graph, Greece’s debt is higher than the average in the Eurozone. Greece agreed for a €11...
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...Introduction The financial crisis of 2007–08, also known as the Global Financial Crisis and 2008 financial crisis, is considered by many economists to have been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It threatened the collapse of large financial institutions, which was prevented by the bailout of banks by national governments, but stock markets still dropped worldwide. In many areas, the housing market also suffered, resulting in evictions, foreclosures and prolonged unemployment. The crisis played a significant role in the failure of key businesses, declines in consumer wealth estimated in trillions of U.S. dollars, and a downturn in economic activity leading to the 2008–2012 global recession and contributing to the European sovereign-debt crisis. The active phase of the crisis, which manifested as a liquidity crisis, can be dated from August 9, 2007, when BNP Paribas terminated withdrawals from three hedge funds citing "a complete evaporation of liquidity". Many causes for the financial crisis have been suggested, with varying weight assigned by experts.The U.S. Senate's Levin–Coburn Report concluded that the crisis was the result of "high risk, complex financial products; undisclosed conflicts of interest; the failure of regulators, the credit rating agencies, and the market itself to rein in the excesses of Wall Street." The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission concluded that the financial crisis was avoidable and was caused by "widespread failures...
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...Will Greece survive the debt crisis once again? Problem Description Greece was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2010 due to the understatement of their deficit figure for years. They managed to survive this financial crisis with international bailout of 240 billion euros. Although bailouts did manage to provide some time to Greece to improve their financial position, but it came at huge expense. In order to improve the economy, it became necessary for Greece to reduce government spending and increase taxes. Consequences The international bailouts managed to delay Greece economic problem for few years but could not get rid of it completely. Moreover, the unemployment rate in Greece rose to above 25 percent during that time period. The bailouts money that supposed to improve Greece financial position was actually used to pay off debt. As a result, Greece economic situation never recovered and government still have to pay huge amount of debt to its creditors. Greece failure to reach an agreement with Europe to arrange money to pay off its debt could result in huge financial crisis and political changes in Greece as they may have to leave Eurozone and seek help from other countries. Some people believe that if Greece go bankrupt it would not have major economic impact on the Europe as it is just a small part of the euro economy and it would be better off to cut it loose. While, other argue that financial problem in Greece would have a major impact on the world and Europe specifically...
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