More than 450,000 people have submitted requests to receive the so-called “social dividend” a one time paid allowance between €500 and €1,000 for the poor, funded with money from the primary surplus of 2013. However, among the really needy, were also several dozens of Greeks with assets and properties worth even €2,500,000.
“900 applicants had assets of more than €500,000 and yet they applied for the social dividend,” Greek media reported on Thursday.
In the exclusive story of daily TA NEA, several examples of the bold Greeks who applied for the allowance were:
– A couple from Evia with real estate worth €2.3 million, family annual €102,000 euros and residence of 230 sq.m.
– A five-member family from Kalithea in Athens, with annual income €110,000, real estate worth €540,000, a car of 3500 cc and €50,000 from deposits interest.
– A family of four from Paleo Faliro in Athens with real estate worth €2.7 million and annual income €90,000.
Among the other exemplary applicants is a family with a swimming pool, a family with a 10-meter-long boat.
Applications for the social dividend are done electronically, the strict criteria refer to annual income up to 9,000 euro.
According to unverified information, the application is approved or rejected within minutes as the electronic system has immediate access to the taxation date of the applicant.
I could hardly believe my eyes this morning when I read the story. I thought of cases of families with a home of their own and no other income but one salary that can hardly covers the monthly expenses. I thought of families with less than 12,000 euro income and two properties who are unable to sell one of them because nobody buys it. I thought of this elderly woman with land properties in God-knows-where-land and a home of her won who can hardly pay her electricity bill. And yet, according to the deemed income taxation system they are not eligible to apply for the social dividend.
And here come some people with nerve and try to grab a 500-euro allowance from the really poor.
Ι can’t help but wonder whether we are indeed a society in such a moral decline.
On the other hand I can’t help also but have some reservation as to why this ‘news’ was leaked to the press.
PS I hate society dividing policies.
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this is crazy.
Yesterday Ekathermini reports Greece is borrowing 19 Billion more this year, and has no money ( extending loans another 50 years ):
” ” The debt relief is most likely to include stretching out the maturities of its rescue loans to about 50 years and also cutting interest charges on some of them. ”
The EU and the IMF have so far extended 218 billion euros of bailout loans to Greece over the past four years and Athens stands to get 19 billion euros more by the end of the year.
On top of this aid, the European Central Bank has bought about 40 billion euros of Greek bonds and Athens obtained debt relief worth 170 billion euros in 2012, most of it by imposing big losses on private bondholders.
The debt relief for Athens is to ensure that after the International Monetary Fund lending program to Greece ends in 2016, the country can reach a debt-to-GDP ratio of 124 percent in 2020 and substantially below 110 percent in 2022. ”
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Today we hear Greece is handing out a ‘ surplus ‘.
… crazy.
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it’s a matter of accounting.
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absolutely no morals
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give me money today, my children and grandchildren
will pay you back over the next 50 years
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US, France, Italy Spain, they are all the same.
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disgusting
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KTG,
I do like your blog a lot and I find 99.8% of your posts great. But it happens that this one falls in the remaining 0.2%.
With this number in mind, I have to note that the 900 filthy rich applicants are only a minuscule fraction of the total 450K, exactly 0.2%, which is indeed a remarkably small percentage given that everyone could freely apply for this allowance without necessarily receiving it.
In fact what is strange is that the percentage is so low, since it is only rational (from an economic point of view) that people would apply for free money, regardless of their wealth.
So no need to worry about our society’s moral bearings. We might not be as bad as we think 😉
-A devoted reader of yours
that’s a point too, thanks. I don’t worry, I’m just wondering about both aspects of the ‘news’: why ‘rich’ -in Greek media they were referred to as “super rich”, which they’re not – tried this and why the finmin leaked this to the press.