The talented Mr Thomsen, the surgeon who tries to finish people’s lives with a fine scalpel, the ambitious Poul Thomsen from IMF allegedly earns $240,000 or €185,000 annually, with the largest part of his income being tax free. The man who tries to make people in Greece and Portugal to work for a piece of bread and taxes even those living below the poverty line, earns so much as 35 Greeks or 53 Portuguese in one year. Once Greeks and Portuguese do indeed manage to get a job and work for the minimum wage of €751 and €485 gross respectively.
Newspaper Eleftheros Typos notes, that the annual income of Poul Thomsen is in fact much higher and he can earn even $309,000 as deputy director of the European Department of the IMF, as he is paying according to the B05 lever. A large part of the income is tax free, since all non-American employees of the International Monetary Fund are exempted from income tax.
IMf employees enjoy also a number of other priviledges and benefits.
The IMF justifies the salaries and privileges on the grounds of ‘competitiveness’, giving another meaning to the word. In Greece, Poul Thomsen wants to lower the minimum wage from 761 down to 561 euro gross per month..
Officers at IMF saw their earnings increase at 4.9% in 2011. Greeks’ wages decreased at 25% since 1009.
One could argue, that the IMF has not debts when compared to Greece and Portugal. However the salary of Thomsen & Co is paid by the money of IMF-member states taxpayers, including the debt-ridden Greeks.
source: Eleftheros Typos via news247.gr and star.gr
What is the point of this piece?
I appreciate this site as a direct source of information from Greece but this is just crap.
Are you surprised that a senior officer earns tens of times more than the minimum wage in some countries? You shouldn’t.
the point is 1) Greeks have such aversion against Thomsen they would reveal even colour & size of his boxer shorts if possible 2) IMF’s double standards when it comes to words like ‘competitiveness 3) crap makes life easier 4) of course Im not surprised
Everybody here is falling for the oldest trick in the book: Good cop, bad cop. Thomson is paid handsomely because he is playing the bad cop, the lightning rod. And it is working, because as soon as you personalize these things the real discussions are lost in the fog. And that’s the goal.
or scapegoats lol
I see that fingers are still being pointed at outsiders as if they are to blame for the financial problems Greece has. Thomsen earns a large salary, and probably has to work very hard for it, as I’m sure there are many others who would like to take his place. Perhaps it would be an idea to post how much Greek politicians earn, and how much tax they pay. I wouldn’t bother listing what they have to do to earn it as it appears to be nothing.
And how much does the Greek President make? Or Greek politicians?
By the way, how much have Greek politicians stolen? How many public servants does Greece have as a percentage of its work force? And what about the wonderful bureaucracy (how long does it take to do something that is simple in other countries?….i.e. opening a company).
And Germany and Thomsen are to blame for this?
The corruption, bureaucracy, and massive civil service are to blame…..not anyone else.
see? even if people don’t agree with the post, they do comment :).
The age old Greek crisis can be traced to an ancient Greek text from 2000 years ago. In it, one Greek was speaking to another and loosely is translated as follows:
First Ancient Helenes: Ti Doulia Kanis? (What job do you do?)
Second Ancient Helenes: Ah, O Theos mou einay Vouleftis (My uncle is a parliament member).
And as such, the corruption continued on some thousands of years later.