Far-left, Anti-Austerity Party Triumphs in Greek Election.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30975437

From the exit polls it looks like they are going to gain all but 1 or 2 seats for an overall majority. And with a couple of other left-leaning parties in the mix, expect things to be shaken up quite a bit in Greece.

Oh, and far-right Golden Dawn look to have picked up about 6% of votes. Hardly the nationalist landslide a certain racist troll member here was predicting a few months back...

[pErvinalia]

Good. Shake the elites up a bit. I wonder what the neoliberal troika is gunna do about this? Probably crank up the moralising and punishment.

[JimC]

Once in control, however, they may find themselves more constrained by financial matters than election rhetoric would suggest...

[Svartalf]

I hear that the Greek are ready not to see them fulfill their every electoral promise... of course, those who said it don't live there.

[cronus]

The tyre of Europe readying to leave the wheel? Italy next then Spain? Followed by Norway and Sweden. It's beginning to fall apart. The centre cannot hold...anarchy soon. Euro goes away.

[Seth]

Once in control, however, they may find themselves more constrained by financial matters than election rhetoric would suggest...

"Constrained?"



Greece is going to bankrupt within a year at most. Leftists cannot cancel the very social programs that drove Greece to the brink of failure, which is what cause the austerity government to take charge.

There's almost no OPM left in Greece and the EU isn't going to bail them out again. It's going down. The first domino.

[pErvinalia]

Greece's problems were with the rich not paying any taxes (and a corrupt government bureaucracy). I'm assuming most of the money they stole has already fled the country. The EU should follow it and get it back. Not that that will happen.

[pErvinalia]

Countries default on their debts all the time, and debts are written off regularly. The ball is really in the EU's court. Do they want to keep the EU together, or do they want to see it fail. Although, from what I hear, Tsiparis is a reasonable person and not against the EU, so maybe there is a compromise to be met.

[laklak]

Germany will bail them out, in return for a few more islands.

[mistermack]

Germany will bail them out, in return for a few more islands.

I think that's a fair point. If the Greeks want money, they should have to sell something. Or work for it like everybody else.

They haven't had nearly enough austerity yet. This election proves it. Nothing will change, if they get soft money. It takes time for all of the fiddles to be driven out. It's a mindset that people got into.

They should never have been allowed in to the Euro in the first place. The criteria were there, but they were massively bent, to squeeze Greece over the hurdle.
Given the chance, this is what the Greeks will do.

I don't agree that the Euro is in danger from this though. Greece is by FAR the worst case. The other countries are learning. Slowly. And banks are under a much tighter rein than they used to be, and it gets tighter all the time. I don't think the dogma of freeing up capitalism to do it's own thing will be back any time soon.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

The first casualty of the new regime...?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30984851

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Alexis Tsipras (the new PM) is an atheist. All praise to Ath.

[JimC]

Alexis Tsipras (the new PM) is an atheist. All praise to Ath.

Is he an Orthodox Atheist?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Alexis Tsipras (the new PM) is an atheist. All praise to Ath.

Is he an Orthodox Atheist?

Orthodontic I think.

[Seth]

Greece's problems were with the rich not paying any taxes (and a corrupt government bureaucracy). I'm assuming most of the money they stole has already fled the country. The EU should follow it and get it back. Not that that will happen.

Actually, it's with pretty much everybody not paying taxes. There is a notorious underground economy in Greece where everyone from shop owners to the wealthy find ways to evade the egregiously corrupt taxation in Greece that is assessed by the egregiously corrupt government and its legions of sinecured public servants who control everything that happens in Greece.

In a TV news program a couple of years ago, I think it might have been Sixty Minutes, an entrepreneur who wanted to expand the size of his small restaurant recounted the more than 20 different government boards and committees he had to literally pay off to get permission to buy the vacant space next door and expand his business.

Bribery of public officials is a way of life in Greece, because there are so damned many public officials, every one of whom can stop any sort of economic progress by the average citizen. It is these public servants who were the most vocal dissenters of the austerity measures because it meant that they would lose their jobs, which are tax-paid sinecures for useless and obstructive bureaucrats.

So no, it's not just "the rich" who aren't paying taxes, it's everyone, and they have this underground economy because the bureaucracy of corruption that is the Greek government beggars their society in order to keep the useless and worthless bureaucrats that perpetuate the system employed.

I'm all for Greece's people refusing to pay taxes like that.