Financial Post
June 19, 2011
Nobody likes taxes, but the historical opposition to them in two nations could be ruinous for everyone.
In Greece, the Ottomans made taxes and subjugation synonymous. Turks required Greeks to let Ottoman tax collectors slap their faces and grab their hair if they did not bow. They imposed the “tribute of children” requiring one in five male children to serve in the Sultan’s army. After liberation in 1821, Greece was governed by a string of illegitimate monarchs and dictatorships until it formed a Republic which is unwilling or unable to collect taxes.
The result is rioting and rigor mortis. Fresh private-sector pockets must be found to loot. The Europeans are on the hook for the Eurozone’s poorly devised architecture which allowed Greece to cook its books and get too deeply in debt.
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