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Greek Government Abruptly Shuts Down State Broadcaster
An anonymous reader writes "The Greek government shut down broadcasting of all TV and radio channels operated by the state-owned broadcaster ERT at midnight local time, with police ejecting journalists and other employees occupying the building. The above link is a prominent Greek economics professor's (and Valve's in-house economist) analysis of the political motivations for the move."
meanwhile, in USA, I have 4 channels that are showing the Kardashians at this very moment.
That's kind of weird. We hear about governments shutting down all broadcast media other than state-owned media so often that the opposite is just...bizarre...
What's the rest of Greece's commercial broadcast media like? What was this organization like? The only analogues I have are NPR and PBS for "state owned" and that's not necessarily entirely accurate, and that private broadcast media here in the US is often very, very heavily biased, even moreso when they make claims to the contrary.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Most European counties have state television next to commercial television. This nothing to do with capitalism and in most cases state television (or state funded independent television) is more objective and has more integrity. For educational and cultural productions, news and documentaries this is very noticeable.
The problem in Greece is mainly due to lack of involvement of the government and too much uncontrolled capitalism.
i should tell you that i feel very happy about that decision
* They said that the "ERT tax" on power bills will be over (it was about 10-30% of the bill, depending on the size of the bill, believe it or not!)
* In the same time that they ask for minimum wage to be lower than 500euros/month, they were hiring journalists with ten times this wage in order to control them. You can read about that in Varoufakis blog.
ERT was a House Of Corruption. It should have been shut down years ago.
Not only was it a propaganda station, but it was also full of employees that did not have a job description, but they were employed by politicians in order to vote for them.
2500 employees for 3 channels and 1 radio station.
Maybe those evil tax evaders could afford to pay some taxes if those poor, abhorred multi-billionaires would pay a decent wage to the people who do all the work for their companies instead of siphoning it all off into offshore accounts.
What kind of regulation would solve this? Companies are allowed to sell their products for whatever they want in every EU country.
And here we have a perfect example of (one of the reasons) why Greece has the problems it has.
People so convinced that the are owed more of everything as to think that goods being sold by
private companies can be price fixed by the government so they can afford them.
Hint: if people are not buying them, the companies will lower the price if they want to sell them, its
called supply and demand.. if people want the products, the price will rise.
Surely you are not going to try and convince us IKEA somehow has a monopoly on furniture that it is
somehow using to force people to pay high prices?
The 'problem' with free markets is people reap what they (and their governments) sow, and greece
has done a lot of sowing over the last few decades (as have many other countries).
Hint: if you want a higher quality of living, you have to be either smarter, or harder working, or willing
to sacrifice more natural resources than others - not always pleasant, just a FACT.
The problem in Greece is mainly due to lack of involvement of the government and too much uncontrolled capitalism.
This is sarcasm right? It's kind of like looking at a car with a flat and claiming the problem is that the driver hasn't punctured the other three tires too. Greece didn't get into the mess it is in by unfettering capitalism, a thing incidentally that it has yet to do.
No, endemic levels of tax evasion (come on, you honestly expect me to believe you had no idea Greece was a tax haven) mixed with equally endemic levels of corruption means that Greece's tax revenues have consistently fallen below expectation. So even when the Greek minister balanced the books, the companies in Greece simply didn't pay tax.
It was cheaper to pay off the tax collector than to pay tax. Essentially companies could do what they wanted as long as they kept the right palms greased (which is cheap for any multinational).
Next thing you're going tell me is that your shocked that some Thai girl offered to have sex with you in Bangkok when prostitution is illegal in Thailand.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
We have those same 4 channels in Greece too. It's just that we lost the one that didn't show them.
Ok so here's a bigger picture of what led to the shut down.
1) The ERT (National Radio) was a way for decades for the goverment to reward supporters with well-payed tenured jobs.
2) As a result, there are hundreds of people working there who get payed for menial tasks.
3) The Troika has demanded that about 2500 people working for the public sector will be fired before the end of June. 150.000 before the end of 2014.
4) A large privatisation programme that was a requirement from the Troika to continue the Greek bail out failed on Monday (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jun/10/greek-gas-supplier-selloff-gazprom )
As a result shutting down ERT hits two birds with one stone: It allows them to fire more than the minimum 2500 that was required, and also distracts the public opinion from mondays failure that is sure to bring more austerity measures. The goverment claims that the shutdown was justified because of the corruption and thriftlessness of the organization, while the governing party was the one that helped create them.
And here we have a perfect example of (one of the reasons) why Greece has the problems it has. People so convinced that the are owed more of everything as to think that goods being sold by private companies can be price fixed by the government so they can afford them.
The point of regulation is to prevent companies from market manipulation. Companies will naturally move to maximize profits and will, if allowed, perform any action to do so. Competition gets eaten up while at the same time no room is left for new players. Eventually, the market dies.
So regulation is required to facilitate a healthy market. Rules are put in place to ensure that established companies can not prevent competition from entering a market. Limits to what monopolies can do are instigated. Everybody is forced to play fair in an attempt to maximize competition and the benefits of capitalism.
People go on and on about how capitalism and regulation are polar opposites. This is ludicrous. Without regulation the benefits of capitalism do not exist. The invisible hand is an idealized concept which, much like communism, ignores reality and is doomed to failure. A market without sufficient regulation will not optimizes overall efficiency. Of course too much regulation also reduces efficiency - but a certain amount is always required.
So this isn't about the Greek people wanting the government to fix prices - this would obviously not work. It's about opening up the markets that have been sewn shut by the current players. This required effective regulation - far easier said then done.
I don't know why you were modded "troll" but I'd have modded "overrated" because the comment is completely inaccurate. The poor pay few or no income taxes, but a very high percentage of their meager income on gasoline taxes, tobacco taxes, alcohol taxes, and other federal excise taxes. The middle class is taxed at twice the rate of someone whose income is from gambling on the stock market. Plus, the more you earn the more loopholes you have.
This is why they're despised. You think it was the poor and middle class who destroyed the economy?
Free Martian Whores!
1. It was one of the worst channels on greek TV and I doubt anyone will miss it
2. Since always everyone was complaining about the fee they had to pay for it every month. Saying I dont want to pay for state television is the same as saying it should close down. Now all the people who side with the ones fired from ERT are just a pretentious mass. They didn't support ERT when it was working, now they can't act all high and mighty and on their side because it closed
3. ERT was another corrupted part of the public sector. It was a channel with horrible censorship and with people in higher positions paid more than they should've been. There were more than a few incidents when ERT refused to show things in the news that ALL the other channels were showing. As someone put it "ERT, you weren't there for us when all of that was already happening to us for years now, why should be there for you?"
4. Comparing ERT to the BBC/CNN is a horrible insult for both of these channels. ERT was worse than FOX news and people complaining about how greece is left only with private channels don't seem to understand that all those private channels are and have always been much better than the mess that ERT was.
When you're poor, stop spending money on non-essentials.
That's common sense when you're talking about an individual, or a household. The problem is that that people extrapolate that to whole economies, or governments.
Money goes around in loops. At the level of a household, the loops have little significance. If you spend $10 on a movie ticket, that money's spent, and the route that connects it to your next piece of income is so long that it has no bearing on your decisions. At that scale, you might as well think of spending as a sink, and earning as an unending source.
But at the level of corporate and government spending, the loops are very significant. Pay 1000 roadworkers $20,000 dollars each, that money will go into a chain of transactions, most of which are taxed, keeping dozens of people in work.
*Don't* employ those 1000 roadworkers, and they'll spend less, slowing down the entire economy.
Since when do "state run" and "quality" belong together?
BBC.
In the UK, switching from BBC1 (main state-funded TV channel) to ITV1 (main commercial broadcaster) is like going from a Michelin-starred restaurant to McDonald's.
State-funded is different from state-run. Allegedly this Greek broadcaster is the former, but I don't know how far it swung in which direction.
Actually, I'd say unless you have a government bent on controlling the news, state media usually provides the most neutral less "hyped" information. I know in the US it's all about "nothing should be state owned" but beyond the rethoric in many instances state media have provided the best quality TV, certainly in terms of information. Too much of private TV news is entertainment. The CNNisation of news is a terrible tragedy.
I cannot say what the situation was in Greece, but if it is similar to what I have experienced when I have been in Western Europe, greeks have probably lost their best source of news.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
Yep, many surveys have shown that NPR/PBS consumers tend to be more well informed when compared against extremely politicized sources like FOX and MSNBC and also when compared against consumers of mainstream mass market news sources. Right wing extremists have been complaining about liberal bias at NPR/PBS for years but it seems to be the same kind of liberal bias as reality has =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.