Slashdot Mirror
Software Devs Leaving Greece For Good, Finance Minister Resigns
New submitter TheHawke writes with this story from ZDNet about the exodus of software developers from Greece. "In the last three years, almost 80 percent of my friends, mostly developers, left Greece," software developer Panagiotis Kefalidis told ZDNet. "When I left for North America, my mother was not happy, but... it is what it is." It's not just the software developers quitting either. The Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis also resigned. A portion of his resignation announcement reads: "Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted ‘partners’, for my ‘absence’ from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today."
A developer working in Greece will pay taxes in Greece and spend most of his/her income in Greece.
A developer leaving Greece will not pay income tax in Greece and IF he/she sends back any money it is nothing compared to what he/she would earn in Greece. Furthermore Greece paid the developers education in the expectation it would be a wise investment in the future (education == long term investment).
Note, in case this developer is doing work for a foreign company, this adds to Greece export and the differences are even larger.
Sorry, the helping out relatives story is not in the interest of Greece.
I think it's pretty clear Varoufakis was turfed by Tsipras because the only hope in hell Greece now has of negotiating a deal with the Troika and remaining in the Eurozone and even in the EU is not having that man by his side. The price of even talking about a new deal and further bailouts is Varoufakis's head, which has been delivered to Merkel on a silver platter. This referendum was completely about Tsipras's political survival, and having achieved that, Greek voters will now witness just how utterly irrelevant the referendum was.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"A developer working in Greece will pay taxes in Greece"
No he won't. That's why they're in this mess.
Seriously! Have you made any attempt to understand this problem?
Former Greek governments borrowed the money, not bankers. Most of the money wasn't lent by bankers. The troika comprises the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank - mostly politicians, not bankers.
The current problem facing Greece is that no-one will lend them any more money. Even if 100% of their past debts were written off, current tax receipts are insufficient to meet current expenditure. Without more money from the people you mistakenly call bankers, austerity in Greece will become much worse.
Put the blame where it really lies. Not with bankers, but with dishonest politicians and a delusional electorate who always believed someone else would pay their bills.
Yes Socialism...
The banks are not the cause of the problem here, but the symptom of the sickness that's killing Greece (and countries in similar situations). Greek banks WILL fail. They don't have stacks of euros to stuff into the ATM's and the people of Greece are desperately trying to empty their accounts because everybody knows that if you leave your cash in the bank, you won't get it out. Everybody wants to be in hard currency, euros. The banks have run out.
Ask yourself, how did Greece get to this point? Basically it's because they failed to make the most recent payment on their national debt. There isn't enough euros in the government coffers to make the payment, they defaulted and now they cannot borrow because nobody wants to lend them anything. Why is the government in Greece at this point? Because they SPENT money they didn't have and cannot raise. Normally countries just print more currency to pay loans, but you cannot do that when it's euros you need to print.
So what did Greece spend all this money on? Early retirement for everybody and social programs. Socialism in leaning, if not actual practice is what has Greece into crushing debt.
Greece is being crushed between the Eurozone and their debt, the debt that funded their social programs. The sad part though is that the people who will really pay for this are the poor, the people who didn't have the ability to move their assets OUT of Greece.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The Greek financial disaster came from refusal to live within their means and not run chronic deficits for decades on end. This is the end result of modern "borrow and spend" liberalism taken so far as to ruin the finances of Greece and exhaust the patience of the rest of Europe. The people bailing are the "children" spoken of when conservatives are heard to say we must not saddle our children with debt.
The thing that is not said is that the reason we must not do this is not merely because it is morally reprehensible, which it is, but that the children simply won't pay it. Unless you are ready to erect gulags to enslave people you can't make them live their lives to fund your unlimited socialist dreams.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
The Federal Reserve doesn't work like that. The USA can maintain its government deficit because enough people are willing to buy US government bonds. If, one day, people no longer trust it to repay its debts, there will be a financial meltdown the like of which the world has never yet seen.
The largest purchaser of US bonds today is ... wait for it ... the Federal Reserve.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
You donâ(TM)t actually know what you are talking about do you.
Most of the loans in question here were in fact loaned by German and French bankers to the Greeks prior to the 2008, Deutsche bank was one of the biggest. They could get somewhat higher returns loaning to Greece and they had some security because Greece was in the Eurozone. That security unravelled with the 2008 crash.
The ECB, EU, IMF gave massive loans to Greece in 2010, and most of it immediately went to extricate the German and French banks from their bad greek loans. If the Greeks has defaulted on the original loans then there would have been a massive banking crisis in Germany and France. The 2010 EU bailout was to save their banks more than it was to help the Greeks.
The Greeks just got more debt piled on top of too much debt and its totally destroyed their economy. Recently released IMF studies confirm the Greeks canâ(TM)t sustain their current debt load and it has to be restructed or they have to default. If they stay the current course with austerity and more and more bailout loans they are doomed.
If the Greeks had been smart they would have exited the EU and defaulted on the debt in 2009 and the people who made the bad loans, the German and French bankers, would have paid the price. Instead they got off scot free.
Iceland immediately defaulted in a similar situation, they had some short term pain but they rebounded, while the Greece has gotten nothing but worse and worse under the yoke of a corrupt European and global banking system.
For banking and loans to work there is a simple rule, if you are foolish enough to make a bad loan to someone who probably wonâ(TM)t pay it back, then you pay the price when they default. Instead the people who make the bad loans (i.e. bankers) get to keep their bonuses profits and everyone else gets to pay for their stupidity, greed and corruption.
@de_machina
That's usually what happens when you fire everyone, liquidate what's left and then proceed to have no further source of income: A large inflow of cash, followed by nothing.
Yeah, look at how awful countries like Norway and Sweden are with all their "nanny-state policies".... they only have the highest standards of living in the world.