Greece, sad

Not my field, but I'm guessing Greece's earnings from shipping were FAR larger 40 or 50 years ago. China's probably grabbed a big share of this business along with so many others.

Socialism doesn't come into it, other than being the direct cause.

When taxation is that high to pay for socialism, no one pays, and the thing collapses.

It's rational. When taxation makes the marginal utility of avoiding taxes higher than (working + paying them), people choose the former.

It's in no one's interest to collapse the system, but in each individual's interest to rob it for all she can. Socialism is a Tragedy of the Commons.

Cheers, James Arthur

Yikes. Few businesses could survive in Greece without serious cheating. And few Greeks could afford to buy Greek-manufactured products if the makers didn't cheat.

The Greek taxation system is way out on the losing end of the Laffer curve.

Whatever the theoretical optimum point is in the tradeoff between earning and tax avoidance, the emotional satisfaction of avoiding taxation pushes the tradeoff point down.

Driven by a basic misunderstanding of human nature and economic dynamics. Once entrenched, it's basically unfixable.

Cheers?!!

So in addition to price controls there are unnecessary regulations.

But they wouldn't have needed to come from that far away. In any case, if stations could have raised the price there would have been no shortage. With no long-distance deliveries they'd just have to raise the price more to prevent it.

late.

collect enough in tax to keep the government in business.

vasion - presumably via bribery.

I wonder how it is to be understood?

I thought Denmark was bad with a marginal tax at 59+8% with a cap of 51+8% on total income

But if the whole country sees tax evasion and corruption as a national spor t it doesn't matter what the tax rate is

-Lasse

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yeh, free market would be to just increased the price until only those who really needed it would buy it

I was in Phoenix when the pipeline broke and everyone was bitching and moaning about the price increase while queuing up for hours to get a ration ed

-Lasse

It might have been possible to override the regs in an emergency.

Probably not, but the whole fuel distribution network lacks much reserve.

This being said, storing volatile fuels like gasoline is inherently dangerous. But the principle reason for "regional" fuel blends is more about where oxygenated fuels are required.

Unlikely, really. It's a different situaiton than in New York, but I went through the whole sequence of hurricanes in Florida in the decade of the 2000s and never bought gas once.

We'd tanked up before, and had a 5 gallon can just in case. But we weren't going anywhere.

When, in an emergency situation is exactly what's needed.

That's a natural reaction when there are shortages. Lift the rationing (and any price controls) and all would have corrected itself.

It's amusing that fatheads think they can hike taxes, get a linear increase in revenue, and people will just sit there and take it.

It's primal, literally deep in the brain--no beast likes you taking its food.

Hopefully not! Just a bit o' education and people adapt (sort of). Like with the North Atlantic fisheries.

Hey, the planet's exploding, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun!

CHEERS! James

On Sunday, May 17, 2015 at 2:06:15 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wro te:

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't collect enough in tax to keep the government in business.

evasion - presumably via bribery.

That's how I interpret it (but 28% SS, not 26%).

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Culture is part of it, but the taxation itself breeds the culture.

The 50th hour is worth more to *you* than the 49th (because it's a bigger sacrifice). Meanwhile, taxation is decreasing your pay every extra hour you work. At some point the curves cross, and it's not worth it.

You then have two choices: stop working, or cheat.

If many choose the first, the gov't has just capped their human potential. Their society has less, and is impoverished (materially) as a whole.

Cheers, James Arthur

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too late.

dn't collect enough in tax to keep the government in business.

ax evasion - presumably via bribery.

sport

That's not what the "The Spirit Level" tells us. More egalitarian societies - which happen to be more egalitarian - in part - because their collect mo re in tax and spend most of it in improving the condition of the poor, are better places to live and work than less egalitarian societies.

James Arthur has been brain-washed into thinking that the USA is the best p lace to live and work, so he's blind to the fact that it lost that distinct ion a few decades ago. The distinction outlived Horatio Alger by half a cen tury, but lots of other countries had caught up by then, and a few have now got out in front.

Although Greece is quite socialist, and socialism is their rationale, the immediate problem in Greece is simply having far too high a fraction of the population being on the government payroll, directly or indirectly.

For instance ..

Pensions are a big problem. (Like here in the US in a few companies and cities often in the news.)

The Greek crisis is happening now because the German taxpayers are no longer willing to support the Greek population.

Joe Gwinn

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The Wilkipedia article doesn't even include the word socialism. James Arthu r sees socialists everywhere, and blames them for everything - it's demente d but that's what hanging around with the Tea Party does to your brain.

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The Greek taxpayers were never willing to support the Greek population - th ey've evading their taxes since they were part of the Ottoman Empire (and t hey got out from under in 1832).

Trying to imagine that socialism played a part in the debacle is wrong-head ed. Some of the money Greek government was spending was on socialist polici es, but their problem was with collecting money, rather than where they spe nt the money they hadn't worked hard enough trouble to collect.

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Mitchell's Golden Rule is that government should grow more slowly than the economy (GDP). Greece provides a counter-example.

Yes. The problem with Greece is that sooner or later you run out of other peoples' money, too.

Cheers, James Arthur

Isn't that characteristic of socialism? When 50% or more of GDP is filtered though government, it takes a lot of government employees to shovel that money around.

It takes a *huge* number to make sure it's used efficiently.

We have a 401K system. Every year, we give our employees a retirement contribution, and it's theirs. They can add more, if they want to. We have no on-going liability.

Cool (the HV pics.) (the joke was a stinker.)

George H.

It doesn't seem to in Scandinavia, where it seems to be used quite efficiently.

makes the point that there's no correlation between the proportion of the work force employed by the government and the prosperity of the country. The Scandinavian countries do have a lot of tax-payer funded employees, but they are remarkably prosperous.

Not only there. Also in areas where socialist influences have destroyed factories and thus jobs. Think unions and Detroit. Of course this also happens in free-market areas and systems, just not nearly to that extent.

Greece's economy shrinks more than 5% per year. That is almost a downward spiral. And yeah, it is Greece's responsibility.

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The big danger is when the number of government workers and their political power get so big they can choose the government that will give them the most pay and keep them employed and those who have to pay can't do anything about it

In a democracy you need a reasonable balance between givers and taker or it'll just implode

-Lasse