You should consider yourself literally blessed that you do not understand Greek. That you can easily resist temptation to push ON on remote control and zap through television channels or radio programs to watch or listen the current news and the accompanying comments or analyses. Or having to read the newspapers with their huge scaremongering headlines.
I can not describe in words what is happening nowadays, and if I had the possibility to say my opinion with a drawing, it would be presumably very inappropriate.
A circus. A huge circus in turmoil. With the furious director running up and down trying to achieve the impossible: to bring the circus in order. mainly through the economic issues.
The creditors in tamer uniforms brandishing their whips in fury, while the lions roaring hungry and on the benches the crowd screams.
The circus director desperately tries to throw baits of ‘equivalent measures’ in the arena. And yummy cuts from the measures cuts. He cuts here and sews there, a tiny little patch to cover a big hole, and in-between throws a chicken bone in the middle of the arena. How can you feed hungry lions and angry tamers with a chicken bone? How can you satisfy the screaming audience with two balloons and a bag of pop corn?
The director is running around in vain. The tamers, the lions and the crowd scream in ecstatic and nerves-tearing cacophony.
State expenditure cuts here, extraordinary contributions there. Temporary levies that turn permanent and permanent levies that will change name. As if renaming Property Tax into Property Tick-Tack will make it smoother.
The news crash in the middle of the circus arena like multicolored fireworks. Lions roar, the crowd screams and the tamers brandish the whips. TSACK! TSACK! TSACK! Each and every minute, without a break.
Tough measures, and painful measures and more measures and endless measures for a society that has been squeezed out. And additional measures. Like the news claiming that the finance ministry will impose a 100-euro temporary additional contribution for every self-employed and shop issuing a receipt. To tell you the truth, I was too perplex to read the whole story about who, what, how, for how long and under which criteria this extra levy of all extra levies would be imposed. The lions roared, the crowd screamed and the news was dismissed by the I-don’t-know-which-ministry-exactly as “not true”. but for almost 20 hours,the crod screamed and was readying to eat the lions together with their tamers.
Millions of euro are demanded in taxes, levies and contributions from a society that is unable to pay.
Above everything and all, a dark cloud is hanging from the circus roof: the social security reform that threatens to destroy past, present and future generations. With unemployment officially at 25.5% and unofficially at 28.5%, it is impossible to overhaul the broke social security and pensions system. It is simply impossible. You need growth, jobs and flow of contributions to the funds. And space to breath. Everything else will end in a total disaster and will force people to have to work up to 67 or 70 in a country where there are no jobs, while the pension they will get could be less than 500 euro. Does it makes sense? It does not.
But the director is still furious and throws his chicken bones and the bags with pop corn.
The lions roar, the crow screams and the tamers brandish their whips. TSACK! TSACK TSACK!
Amid the whole scenery of the perfect Greek insanity, there pops up the news of the controversy between the government and the general secretary of revenues. The government wants her out, she refuses to do so. Who cares? Really.
Amid the whole scenery of the perfect Greek insanity, the four candidates for the leadership of New Democracy cross their swords in power struggle, past rivalries and fractions revive, outstanding political bills demand to be paid. Ah, who cares, if Dora Bakoyiannis still has a kind of political vendetta Antonis Samaras? Really.
But these are the stories of the daily madness in Greece. You should consider yourself blessed to be unable to understand Greek. Honestly.
PS and remember. I wrote similar post blogs about the Greek austerity measures insanity in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Why should 2015 be different? Really.
I am so sorry… SO sorry, really… It breaks my heart. Not very helpful, I know, but I’d like you to know that we read you everyday and thank you for keeping us up to date. Many many people outside Greece try to follow what’s happening to the Greek people, send money to help Greek independent clinics or to various NGOs working with the refugees, among others. I don’t know what the best is, but I sure hope for it.
thank you for your support, Stella
Keep writing, please! Your blog is an honest assessment of the situation of Greece and I’m sure a lot of your readers feel the same.
Thank you!!!
of I thank you too 🙂
“PS and remember. I wrote similar post blogs about the Greek austerity measures insanity in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Why should 2015 be different? Really.” – just out of curiousity, how many articles have you written about the insane politics between 1981-2009 which lead to the insanity after 2010? I recently became aware of the Spraos report of 1997. Today’s social security reform which you say threatens to destroy past, present and future generations, well, that’s exactly what the Spraos report had warned about. And to the extent I could research it, the authors of the report were almost cruzified for predicting what would happen and what did happen 13 years later.
from 1981 to 2009 = None reports. KTG blog started in May 2010.
Oh, then you should read up on that period. The roots of today’s Greece’s misery are in that period and not in the memoranda since 2010.
and? what shall we do now? shoot those responsible?
Putting a stop to blaming all the problems on the EU, Germany, other foreign powers, and accepting that Greece needs to take responsibility for fixing the problems (which will be painful no matter what) would be a good start.
much to my knowledge the IMF claims Greek debt is not sustainable. Any solution on this?
I don’t think anyone disagrees that debt restructuring will have to happen sooner or later – not even Germany. But as Klaus has frequently pointed out on his blog, the current level of debt service for Greece is much more favorable than for any other EU country, so he argues that this is not an immediate issue until at least 2020. If there is a sense of real progress by then, then a restructuring would be politically much more doable. And I seem to recall that Klaus also suggested extending the maturities for 50 years at nominal interest, by which time inflation takes care of the problem. This might be politically even easier.
Klaus from the Troika?
Klaus Kastner, who started this portion of the thread.
The lie of the easy “Debt-service” means in reality until 2030: Of 200 billion 150 billion is interest, stop the interest, problem solved.
About the “immediate issue” Varoufakis warned that in 2022 the money Greece must pay “back” will be 3 times of the sum of 2021