Why Greece is failing: 10 months of permits to open an online store

Re:Why Greece is failing: 10 months of permits to open an on... by mahmud on Wednesday February 22, 2012 @04:37PM (#3622597)

Almost everything I read about the financial woes of Greece blames its government's inability to collect taxes, and not, say, beauracratic paperwork. So, excuse me if I'm suspicious of the causal implication of the article.

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Re:Why Greece is failing: 10 months of permits to open an on... by e-dragoev on Wednesday February 22, 2012 @05:24PM (#3622763)

Greece is #100 out of 183 countries in terms of ease of doing business:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_Doing_Business_Index

The only European countries that have lower rank are Russia, Ukraine and Kosovo.

Greece does better than Brazil, Argentina and India though.

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Re:Why Greece is failing: 10 months of permits to open an on... by calbear81 on Wednesday February 22, 2012 @07:29PM (#3623225)

I don't think it's the inability to collect taxes as much as the people's willingness to pay into the "cost of civil society". When you have people who are supposed to be respected members of society (doctors, lawyers, etc.) reporting $20k of income while sailing on their yacht in the Aegean, it's hard to convince the normal working Joe that they should be honest and pay their fair share.

According to Transparency International's 2010 index of corruption, Greece ranked worst in Europe. I wouldn't find it surprising that all of these hurdles (some so ridiculous it's hard to believe) have been enacted to make sure everyone gets a bit of the honey.

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