The ball has been lost in the party of Alexis Tsipras’s party, with his officials “taxing” wealth in a way that’s quite picturesque.
Perhaps there, in EL.A.S. be attempting to create so-called class-based dilemmas along the old lines of “either us or them,” but in the end, everything they say about wealth and related issues becomes mere rhetoric. After all, they lack the know-how of the officials their president wants to leave… behind.
One of them comes out and says that 1,500 tax identification numbers will be taxed to collect 4.5 billion euros—presumably on an annual basis—and give it to… the people. Another one comes out and says the revenue will be 600 million euros, but again, it will be given to the people. Then another one comes along to tax yachts, homes, and cars.
And finally, one of Alexis Tsipras’s representatives—with his personal seal of approval–—comes to tax ultra-luxury properties and apartments, as well as those who rent apartments in luxury hotels and the yachts “that go very fast.”
And if the (new) president’s (new) partners’ yachts don’t go fast, what happens? Won’t they be taxed as wealth? And how will they be taxed? If they’re registered—as most are—with foreign companies? If they fly the flag of another country—as they do—what exactly will happen? How will this wealth be taxed? How will the new… revolution take place?
It is clear that Alexis Tsipras is seeking to project the image of a leftist who (once again) wants to change the country, Europe, and the whole world —even though that didn’t turn out well for the country last time—and that he aims to bring class-based proposals back to the forefront.
This time, however, the… “postmen” are not like the old ones who used to spend day and night in tsipouro bars analyzing the global situation—and, of course, always offering “solutions”— and shaping an ideological stance before leaving their gathering places to return home.
The (new) comrades of the (new) president find themselves in a different… sphere, where the logic of the… revolutionary is defined in their minds by their great leader’s marches through the streets of Genoa—and perhaps for this very reason the battle against wealth becomes, to say the least, picturesque.
