http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/17/g...ss-action/
Quote:Right now, at least $200 billion of Greece’s total financial wealth of $900 billions in the hands of the wealthiest 1%. (Estimate based on 2013 Global Wealth Databook) A 10% tax would raise $20 billion per year, increasing the Greek government’s income by about 65%.
Of course, the oligarchs will try to evade such taxes,moving their money overseas. To prevent that the Greek government should place strict control on the movement of capital abroad. In addition, the government is already the dominant shareholder in the major Greek banks. It should actually exert direct control over the banks, and use their records to track down the real wealth of the wealthiest. The failure of the Syriza government to take this basic step has already allowed the oligarchs to move billions of euros out of Greece. Each day of delay makes this situation worse.
Equally important, despite capital flight, governments everywhere have the power to seize productive property to pay for back taxes. Greek corporations make about $100 billion a year in profits. Seizing , “de-privatizingâ€,the profitable assets of tax-evading oligarchs will bring instant revenue into government coffers.
But all these steps deal with gathering in money revenue. The real key to restarting the Greek economy is what is done with the money. It has to be used to mobilize the now-idle human resources of the country, the vast number of unemployed, to real social benefit. The way to do this is to initiate a massive public works and public service program to provide free education, health care, transportation and housing to all Greeks. A $20 billion a year program would create about 1.3 million new jobs at current wage rates, enough for nearly all the current 1.4 million unemployed in Greece. About half the jobs would be those directly created by the program and and the other half would be those those resulting from more spending throughout the Greek economy due to the new income of the direct employees.
This program must be democratically run by the workers and communities involved at all levels. The jobs must be direct government employment, not though contractors. This is the only way to eliminate the corruption that has plagued the Greek public sector for decades.
By heavily taxing the capitalists and creating a public works and service program, the Greek government will be able to shift the type of imports to Greece and thus can greatly improve living standards without significantly increasing the trade deficit. Greater amounts of necessary goods will replace lesser amounts of luxury goods.
