D E G R A D A T I O N

by Capricorner

Has misinformation, uninform-ation and their hallucinatory by-products got the country “drunk” to a state of byword, a state of degradation?

The last thirty-six years Greece became little by little a place where what was not illegal was moral. Ergo the excesses, the bill for which was recently served. The Government, its state mechanism, is not short of people, bodies one can say, but the question is what sort of people are in abundance ? People who C A N or just bodies feeding off the Government’s hand ?

The country just lost ten million Euros from Brussels because Greece could not solve a relatively small problem … the preservation of the KORONEIA lake which is part of the Greek NATURA. Why is such an easy problem so difficult to handle ? Ask the bodies that feed off the public purse and they can not explain, with reason. Ask anyone who knows how the Public sector functions and you’ll know.

The Mediterranean Games were taken away from Greece, much to the chagrin of the two cities which would have benefitted from them in particular. The country which staged the Athens 2004 Olympics was put to shame. Why ? Because there were no funds available to complete the infrastructure. Why then did Greece undertake to organize the Games? Because it never occurred to anyone that the country would run out of funds and rightly so. Money was always available. When the Treasury did not have enough it borrowed and borrowed and borrowed.

One wonders what were the Greeks drinking all these years … not the Nectar. In 2009 the Government spent 41% more than its revenues ! In plain language 15.6% more than the Greek Gross National Product. The country spends a substantial part of its revenues to maintain an ineffective mechanism. No consideration of facts, no rationale for every action, only a constant increase of public expenditures totally devoid of r e a s o n.

Examples :

1) Instead of supporting Motherhood (to help cure the problem of the declining birth rate) with services, Greece enables mothers to retire with a pension at the ripe old age of 45 to 50, by which time their children have grown up.!

2)In the period of 1976 – 2009 the number of Public sector employees increased by a staggering 150%. Public sector efficiency?

3)From the mid nineties to 2008 Greece enjoyed a growth rate that was higher than the average of the EU, but instead of using it to reduce its Public debt it increased Public expenditures.!

4)In 2004 the EU of the (then) 15 states was spending 27.2% of its GNP to reduce poverty by 8% from 23% to 15%.By comparison Greece was spending 26.3% of its GNP to reduce poverty 2% from 22% to 20% ! !. Ireland, the EU “heaven “of Free Enterprise, was spending a mere 14.3% of its GNP to reduce poverty 11% from 31% to 20% !.

Why was Greek Social Expenditure so ineffective ? because the bulk of Social Expenditure goes to the various entities that handle it, their Boards, Clerical support, Office and other functional and administrative costs, with little left to provide what they are meant to. Like somebody quipped : the Greek Social Welfare state is more state than welfare.

5) Trains are running with only a few passengers, whose tickets hardly cover 1% of the cost. Indicatively, there is one route where trains run twice daily with an average of five passengers each. Surely it would cost the Greek Railways Organization far less if it were to put five passengers in a taxi cab and transport them to their destinations (the route is not long)..

6) Until recently the state owned airline was loosing $ 1.000.000 a day. All Greek Governments let it accumulate big debts, for what reason? Fortunately for the Tax Payers the airline has been privatized.

7)Greece has more teachers than most of its fellow EU members, but one of the lowest educational standards.

8) Greece has one of the Highest rates of expenditure for University education but the lowest grading of its Universities.

9) The Greek General Accounting Office and the National Statistics Service are not up to the level of a first world country that Greece is. Their shoddy “products” became known worldwide as … the Greek statistics … unreliable. Politicians were blamed for the mis-information they provided, but even now with the Government “playing clean” the Greek Stats are viewed with some scepticism, because they are still not entirely free of flaws and the “troika” visits the General Accounting Office to check for themselves some of the figures they are given.

Until very recently the Government … the Republic of Greece … member of the EU since 1981 and a founding member of the Eurozone, did not know how many people it had on its payroll ! ! It did not know the exact number of Public Entities of every kind that it was financing (they are all contributors to the country’s deficits). To this day of the many hundreds of Public Entities less than half have submitted Budgets to the Treasury, same for monthly budget follow up reports. Why? And Why ?

10) Greece can not guard its borders. Thousands of illegal immigrants come in and they have created problems for Greece and for the rest of the EU. To compound the problem Greece has no legal framework to handle illegal immigration.

11) In Greece there is complete freedom of speech. EVERYWHERE one is free to express one’s views, ideas, attitude, To defy reason Greece has created the so called University Asylum, to guarantee that within the grounds of a University one can say what one wants about anything, something the Greek Constitution guarantees e v e r y w h e r e !. To safeguard this right Greece prohibits the police from entering the Universities premises unless invited by the Universities Authorities. The result is that the Authorities never invite the police, for the fear of students reaction and those who roam freely in the Universities’ grounds are hooded anarchists who prepare their molotof cocktails run out hurl them to the police and run back in to the safety of the asylum. The asylum enables dug dealers to conduct their business safely and hashish plants have been cultivated in Universities’ gardens. The financial burden to the Tax payers is the millions of Euros being spent to repair the damages the anarchists leave behind every so often, destruction of equipment, of furniture even of buildings, not to mention the takeovers of facilities to reside there for a few says after, say, a riot

or to set up a radio station to broadcast what they want. .According to Greek reasoning Anarchists and Drug dealers can freely trespass the Asylum but not the Police!

12) Last year 700 marches and street blockades by groups averaging 500 people took place in Athens alone. 700 times traffic was stalled, the retail trade in the city centre, where the marches take place, was all but dead. The Greeks are very demanding, from the Government. Governments endeavour to please all those protesting and so the country sunk in debt. Its indebtedness made it what it is today. What is worse is that demands of one group contradict another group’s pursuit.

What is a Fact is that the country has degraded itself by its aversion to r e a s o n.

The Greeks worked an average of 2160 hours, in 2009, compared to 1600 hours in the Eurozone, because Greece has one of the highest rates of Self Employment, in Europe and they are loath to the idea of employing others because if they no longer need them it is difficult and expensive to terminate them. Same is the case with employers who prefer to have their people work overtime, when needed, rather than hiring new. The Greeks are not good time Charlies as the German media has portrayed them, but Greece has one of the most labour “protecting” legislation in the Organization of Economic Development and Cooperation. This discourages the creation of new employment, full or even part time, which in turn restricts consumption with the ensuing detriment to Public Revenues. Is this reasonable? Does it help to increase employment? To make things worse for the Government, in 2009 60%, yes sixty percent, of the Greeks did not pay one, not even o n e, Euro in income tax. Exemptions of all kinds and of course tax evasion. Is this reasonable?

The Greeks have come to expect “goodies” from the Government, the Government borrowed to “give”, let its mechanism become bloated and ineffective and now that reality has set in what will the Greeks do ? Old dogs do not learn new tricks. Up North in the Kozani area a wonderful opportunity lies on the ground. SAFRON. But it takes some hard work for a few weeks to reap the economic benefits from it. The farmers abandoned the cultivation in favour of a place in the sun … the Public sector : and they show no signs of a change of mind. Work in the fields does not seem to entice them. They are not the only people who expect “big papa” to look after them.

Greece can avoid sinking further if it comes out of its “high spirited” state of being. The Government must help the Greek people realize what was wrong and what is (and from now on will be) right. That Greek Governments will, in all probability, be prohibited from spending beyond the country’s means bodes well for the Greeks who will reverse their skid and, with the help of Eurozone economic planning, resume an economically healthy life. Until that happens the country needs some “counselling” because anger is brewing, the Communist and its Left wing partners are encouraging lawlessness, already expressed in more than one ways, which can cause violence and the damage will not be only material … Democracy itself is at risk.