Greece: Whose (De)Fault Is It Really?
They are not, as northern Europe would have it, idle – those connected with tourism, work very long, hot days, seven days a week in uncomfortable conditions and in towns most of those in offices earn low wages, enterprising young companies start up but are often stifled by bureaucracy.
...Whether this is the sort of long term stable democracy that should have been included in the Eurozone is a question I cannot answer, but perhaps Greece deserved some help to become the sort of productive, peaceful democracy it, and Europe, needed?
...But all the ordinary Greeks I have spoken to expect a default and casual talk is simply about timing, so the government is failing to convince its own citizens of its view of their interests or offer them a viable future.
...None of this theatre goes any way towards re-educating a country in the need to pay tax, nor in establishing a relationship of trust which encourages potential tax payers to believe their taxes will provide services not increase the prosperity of a rich minority.
...The recent ‘discovery’ that many Greek ferries had fake seaworthiness certificates (a sort of marine MOT) issued by a Russian ‘business’ operating in Greece, which provided the paperwork without the financial cost and time of exhaustive safety checks: X raying hulls, lifting the boat out of the water and so on, has halted easy travel to the islands.
...It is probably hard for a Greek to feel militant on an island in summer, part of an extended family and anchored to ancestral roots; the sea and sun are free; but once the city-livers return to Athens and Thessaloniki, to cramped apartments, restlessness and the winter, things will seem dark indeed.
...Whether this is the sort of long term stable democracy that should have been included in the Eurozone is a question I cannot answer, but perhaps Greece deserved some help to become the sort of productive, peaceful democracy it, and Europe, needed?
...But all the ordinary Greeks I have spoken to expect a default and casual talk is simply about timing, so the government is failing to convince its own citizens of its view of their interests or offer them a viable future.
...None of this theatre goes any way towards re-educating a country in the need to pay tax, nor in establishing a relationship of trust which encourages potential tax payers to believe their taxes will provide services not increase the prosperity of a rich minority.
...The recent ‘discovery’ that many Greek ferries had fake seaworthiness certificates (a sort of marine MOT) issued by a Russian ‘business’ operating in Greece, which provided the paperwork without the financial cost and time of exhaustive safety checks: X raying hulls, lifting the boat out of the water and so on, has halted easy travel to the islands.
...It is probably hard for a Greek to feel militant on an island in summer, part of an extended family and anchored to ancestral roots; the sea and sun are free; but once the city-livers return to Athens and Thessaloniki, to cramped apartments, restlessness and the winter, things will seem dark indeed.
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