Bailout!
It's been kind of a running joke that one needn't pay taxes, and the government will still function ably, to provide all the services that a government administering the affairs of a state, should, and would. In Greece, a former director-general at the Athens Chamber of Commerce explains to news hounds how much a part of the traditions and the economy of the country it is to seek methods alternate to surrendering earnings to the tax man.The country has an enormous and entitled public sector, working strenuously not on behalf of the government and the country, but on their own behalf, somehow finding work to do occasionally associated with their well-remunerated positions in a country struggling to pay its way. Two months of automatic annual salary bonuses, special augmentation of salary for cleverly using computers, for turning in to work on time.
Nice work if you can get it. And in Greece, it appears, you could.
Unmarried daughters of deceased civil servants receiving their father's pensions. Oh dear, oh dear. State employees guaranteed their stable positions until a comfortable retirement. With all these guarantees, and a greater number of employees on staff than would account for the work to be done, why exert oneself?
Civil servants eminently corruptible, because this is a tradition, a way of life, and one does not destabilize whatever it is that has worked for so long, because it is socially accepted. One third of the Greek economy, according to the World Bank is off the books. "Corruption is everywhere. It is part of our mentality", according to an investigative television journalist whose specialty has been the exposure of corporate pay-off scandals.
Joining the European Union was a blast. Borrowing was never easier. Low interest rates enabled the population to a huge splurge, taking their cue from their government. "Everyone had access to (cheap money) but there were no institutions to regulate it", helpfully explained Tasos Telloglou, investigative journalist.
"I am not sure that this government can force these changes through. The people are so spoilt that you have to make a huge effort to persuade them that you are going to create change in a just way." There is nothing, nothing whatever just about austerity measures, wage and pension cuts, just for the purpose of achieving a financial bailout.
Ask the country's belligerently-engaged unions: "They are the most unfair and hardest measures in the modern history of Greece", said the president of the million-member GSEE union. It's a tough row to hoe, to be certain; scrapping year-end bonuses for civil servants and retirees.
Labels: Economy, European Union, Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Monday, May 03, 2010
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