Posted on 10/07/2013 9:52:31 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Legendary investor George Soros called for comprehensive debt relief for Greece. "Everyone knows that it can never pay back its debt." Greece is close to a primary budget surplus after a lot of pain and suffering, says Soros, whose speculation against the pound forced the UK to withdraw from the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992.
"If the official sector could forgo repayment as long as Greece meets the conditions imposed by the troika [of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Central Bank (ECB) and European Commission]," Soros added, "private capital would return and Greece could rapidly recover. I can testify from personal experience that investors would flock to Greece once the debt overhang is removed."
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has also recently called for a new round of debt relief for his country. "What is important to me is not to procrastinate too much for a solution," he said. But the German government in particular rejects a writedown of Greek government debt. At most, it wants to discuss lower interest rates and longer loan maturities -- measures that many economists do not regard as being sufficient to solve the problems.
In addition, the German head of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) permanent bailout fund, Klaus Regling, pointed out that debt write-downs are prohibited under ESM rules. The majority of Greece's debt is now held by public institutions, i.e. the IMF, the ECB and other EU member states. If these debts have to be written off, the cost wil be met by taxypayers.
Soros recognizes this problem: "The official sector cannot write down its debt because that would violate a number of taboos, particularly for the ECB." These issues, however, could be surmounted under German leadership.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
The debt can be paid by giving Germany a few islands.
Thank you, I saved this..
Duh!
Alex, I’ll take “The Bleedin’ Obvious” for a thousand...
The hero of every Free Trader Communist....George Soros...wants Greece bailed out.
And...if Obamas Free Trade deal with the EU passes...it will be American tax dollars bailing out Greece....just like the US bailed out Mexico when NAFTA passed in the 90s.
Get ready to bail Greece out....the Dems and the Rove/Soros wing of the GOP will push for it
We could but it would take a couple of highly improbable moves by government.
First the government would have to eliminate thousands of regulations that would free up tons of fettered productivity.
Second the government would have to drastically reduce or eliminate the capital gains taxes. This would increase the investments in productive ventures.
Third reduce or eliminate the corporate income taxes. The US has the highest corporate income taxes in the developed world. Making the US competitive in the industrial world for capital investment would return productive industrial development to the most productive country in the world.
If the Federal government would get out of the way the US could grow its way out of the fiscal hole in to which we have dug ourselves.
More people with jobs would pay more in taxes and reduce the number of entitlement seekers.
Borrowing money knowing that you can't pay it back or not having any intention of paying it back is theft.
‘Greece Can Never Pay Back Its Debt’
That’s obvious and the idea of the Euro was stupid, because it gave the productive countries the obligation to pay the way for the socialist, backward, fiscally irresponsible basket cases like Greece.
Neither can America you Nazi sumbich Kapo.
Sure, Soros wants the IMF or the European Central Bank (ECB) to bail out Greece, so Greece can pay back what they owe him, which is probably plenty.
You left out abolishing SS/Medicare and a host of other un/extra-Constitutional ‘mandatory’ spending programs. Let alone institute a national sales tax (after abolishing the 16th)...so EVERYONE has skin in the game.
Getting gov’t out of the way of biz does nothing for the taxpayers when gov’t keeps adding to the bill...
A sales tax also makes merchants tax collectors which I consider immoral.
Greece can never pay off it’s debt. But American can?
Flat tax still does not have all citizens skin in the game...a sales tax would (and the mechanism is already in place in most States [45/50 IIRC]). Plus, as it’s a line item on the bill, it’s easy to see what gov’t is costing and requires NO collectors (IRS); biz remits to State, State remit to Fed
I have the same feeling about employers being tax collectors; let alone ‘H.C. providers’.
But you would have every merchant be a tax collector for the Feds and have his books subject to Federal audit.
Surely you realize that if every retail merchant becomes a tax collector for the Federal government the government will be anxious to ensure that they are receiving every dime owed to the government.
I will also tell you that I have know more than one merchant that was convicted by the State of Ohio for failing to remit to the state sales taxes collected by them.
This is not unusual for a merchant that is on his back trying to save his business. They are going broke and have to pay their suppliers or not get shipments of product so they go late on their remittance of tax receipts.
The State is not at all forgiving of this kind of infraction. I certainly do not want to put merchants in this position to the Federal government.
I think what Soros is saying is Greece should not pay back the debt to Germany, and he’ll go in and invest to restore the economy. Sounds like a plan, as long as they don’t get into forever debt to Soros.
No, as I stated they would be remitted to the State (the Feds are thus removed), as most are already. A sales tax would remove the employers from that role and kill the 16th/IRS. Hell, I’d love to tack on having the debt being divided by all States/territories based on population.
So, biz owner busted for not paying his taxes - the customer sure did, is ‘bad’ how?
How would your path of keeping an income tax be a better plan?
First there would be no withholding. Make it a quarterly payment that the individual writes a check to the government.
If people have write a check to the government every four months they will very soon have a reality bomb go off in their head as to what government is costing them.
This would be the least costly way to collect taxes. A One page form to calculate your income. A simple table to calculate the taxes owed. Send in your check and you are done.
The pressure to shrink government and cut taxes would be enormous.
The sales tax does have the advantage of that you can lessen your tax load by not spending money but this is also a loop hole in that you can also avoid taxes by buying black market or second hand goods. There is also bartering for services that can avoid taxes.
The Federal government would seek to suppress these markets or find a way to tax them (the states lately have been trying to do this).
The effect of these efforts suppresses the freedom of the market place. I would prefer to find ways for government to secure revenue that puts pressure on government to contain itself rather than to insert itself in to the daily lives of the citizen.
Certainly you can design the sales tax system so that in theory the money is remitted first to the state government but this would be a short term effect and in short order the Federal government would insert itself in to the system to ensure that taxes were being properly calculated and submitted.
That still keeps many out of the ‘process’ (same as today), it still requires a Dept. to track/audit/etc. let alone allows the re-start of ‘tweaking’ and loopholes. It still affords no FREEDOM to NOT be taxed. And, income is STILL the worst way to pay for (true) gov’t functions.
Gov’t should NEVER be the 1st one in the collection line after payday with its hands out...an income tax is just that.
A sales tax is not some ‘black market’ loophole. You’re right though, it DOES allow one to be taxed or NOT. I would NOT allow to some group vs. another (even if they COULD get a loophole, EVERYONE could partake...none of this ‘in bracket XYZ’ crap).
2nd hand and bartering SHOULD be actively used, yet another way to get back to our roots.
The Constitution was to be the ‘constraining’ force of gov’t. You actually believe market forces would do better in some way (cough *the Fed* cough *gold standard* cough)
The remittance CAN be over-taken, in time, I’d bet. Though, IMHO, it’d be a hell of a battle when people were shown what economic freedom feels like again.
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