@raphjd:
Every country's government pays way too much for the stuff it buys. The US infamously bought $12,000 toilet seats and £32,000 hammers back in the 1980s, which at any hardware store would have cost less than $15. Haliburton is still screwing the US over on several contracts they have. The UK always gets screwed (purposely it seems) whenever they had a contract with outside companies, especially in construction.
NO government is without it's base of corruption.
You don't have to live in Greece to see where the problems are coming from; mass tax evasion, black market, early retirement, extremely generous work benefits, etc, etc.
Now, as a citizen you are supposed to pay your taxes and in return the greek state is supposed to provide you education, health and public infrastructure but because of all the money grubbing these three sectors were and are crumbling. You have to pay for extra tutoring if you want a dissent education for your child, you have to pay the doctors or a private clinic if you are in need of something that's less than an absolute life-threatening emergency and you also have to compensate in time and money for the bad public infrastructure.
The UK has the same problems and it's been made worse by having to bailout various countries.
It pisses me off that my taxes have gone up, as has the retirement age, while government services are being slashed.
Let's compare Greece's black market (in 2009 figures) with Scotland's school budget (2012/13). Greece's black market cost their country 43.2 Billion Euros per year (very low estimate; see earlier post) and Scotland spends £2.4 Billion a year on schools. Based on population, cost of living, currency conversion and other factors, you can say that Greece's black market tax loss is just shy of 14 times it's budget for school. Of course that doesn't cover the other forms of tax evasion.
Your government's budget is in serious trouble when 25% of it's GDP tax revenue is lost to the black market. Then you need to add in all the other forms of tax evasion and the problem just grows and grows.
Extremely working benefits?
Let's compare notes on my working field.
I am a nurse. I work on a clinic of a hospital in Athens. Every shift has a total of two nurses which have to deal with a clinic with 35 (yes, you have red correctly) patients (the least). We do not have the proper material and medicine in order to care for our patients. We are getting paid 800 Euros per month. Quite often we are forced to surpass our working hours in order to help the next shift with the preparation of the medication of the patients. These are hours that we are not going to get paid. We cannot have a single day off and our days of absence for the summer are extremely limited.
Now, as i understand, you are from UK, right?
Can you tell me how are the working conditions in your hospitals?
Be careful what are you going to reply because i have treated a patient from England and he gave me some insights regarding the conditions of your hospitals.
