Breaking News: "Greek" DNA Analysed!!

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SIR
As an American student of tribal programming, I can assure the world-wide public that the much discussed Greek problems are neither financial nor political. They are genetic.

DNA programming is such that every Greek is committed to two self-evident truths. First, that he alone deserves to be Emperor of the Universe and, second, that out of sheer envy, everyone else conspires to prevent him from assuming his rightful position.

The above conviction makes all Greek societies initially dysfunctional and eventually chaotic. In the Fifth Century BC, after the Greeks managed to keep Iran out of Europe, they launched a civil war that destroyed both Athens and Sparta. In the Sixth and Seventh Centuries AD, shortly after the Romans presented the Greeks with an Empire, the recipients launched a series of civil wars which led to the capture of Constantinoupolis by the Latins in 1204 AD and then to the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans in 1453 AD. In the 1820s AD, while fighting their Independence War against the Ottomans, the Greeks, true to their genetic programming, also fought not one but two civil wars over a question that resonates loud and clear today. Namely, who will get his hands on the proceeds of the first international loan secured by the embattled state.

The European Union insists that ailing Greece must institute fiscal discipline, transparency, accountability and an independent Statistical Service that won't fiddle the books. To Greek ears this is pointless blather. In his heart, every Greek wants the EU to concede the self-evident. Specifically, that every single Greek deserves to be Emperor of the Universe. This being given, the EU is duty bound to keep the tribe of Emperors in the life-style to which they've been accustomed.

If the EU fails to perform its duty, it will confirm what every Greek has always known: that everyone who is not a Greek is a barbarian, and that all barbarians envy the Chosen People.

Basil Coukis
(appeared in the Wall Street Journal, here)

Greece Promises to Curb Investment and Boost Unemployment

I received the following alarming letter:

Sir,

Greece will never cease to amaze. No sooner have Berlin and Paris agreed European support for Greece (10-11th Feb) at the EU summit, than legislators back home quietly prepare for “revolutionary labour reform”.
Most will have heard about Greek accounting and statistics, so creative legislation should come as no surprise. However, a blunder of this magnitude is likely to amaze even the most cynical critic.
To whit: a new bill allegedly prepared in Camera proposes even greater complexity and rigidity to complement Greece's already chaotic labour law. Quite tragicomically, the bill is titled “Guarantees against Job Insecurity” and effectively ensures that investment and jobs will be swiftly moved out of the country only just bailed out by its Europartners.

This text proposes to effectively eliminate temporary labour, drastically limit part-time occupation, eliminate choice in recruitment, and practically eradicate contractual employment. All of this is regulated under strict bureaucratic procedures, contractual mumbo-jumbo, and protected by heavy fines…

The idea, it would seem, is to coerce employers and would be employers to turn exclusively to full-time, indefinite term (lifetime?) employment for their employees.

Wishful thinking.

The fact that this bill contravenes European directives ratified by Greece is one issue – and not always a key issue in Greece as we have seen throughout the years. What is immediately scary, however, is that it is set to accelerate unemployment to new heights adding at least 22.000 to the present toll from one day to another. While official unemployment statistics are, well, Greek, total unemployment could reach 22% of the total work force in the first semester alone estimates a Ministry of Labour official. The reasons why Greeks rally –nay stampede – for positions in the job-secure, pay-secure, and legislation–secure bloated Public Sector is clearly evident.

So, now that Germany is leading Greece’s fiscal bail-out team, which country will be willing to bail out Greece’s newly unemployed?

Kind regards,
Greg Alexander
Recruitment partner, Strategy mentor.
Athens



Excellent.
Further comment is deemed superfluous.

The Woes of Greece and the Guardian (newspaper)

The following letter appeared in the Guardian today.

Interesting read:

"I for one believe [Greece's great problems] are straight ahead -- not around any corner.

One of the problems is that Greece seems to consume much (which is neither here nor there) but produces very little; Apparently much of the public spending never quite made its way into productive investment... unless a Porsche Cayenne vehicle is one such (Greece boasted the highest per capita ownership of such vehicles).

Greece's "action plan" is, it seems, heavily dependant on increasing income which cannot, as many erroneously assume, really come from clamping down on tax evasion -- such as it may be. The assumption being made is that tax evasion is linked to Public Sector corruption: tax evasion would directly result from curbing corruption.
This is hardly an overnight affair some would say not even a three years affair (financial sources allege that claiming and obtaining vat returns in Athens may cost a whopping 10% -- because about 7 persons are involved and they all have to receive their little kickback).

Amazingly, for a country boasting over 700.000 people in the Public Sector and nationalised corporations combined, the cost-cutting part of the financial plan is conservative.

So, a large part of the country's projected top line increase has to come from private investment: that seems a risky assumption if not an unlikely proposition...

To whit: a new labour bill under discussion proposes even greater complexity and INflexibility to Greece's already chaotic labour law.

This bill promises to export more jobs outside the country, adding rising unemployment to the country's financial woes.

Indeed, one minister (who obviously never read the proposals) heralded this labour reform as the tool to create 65.000 new jobs.

Indeed! In Bulgaria, perhaps?"



End of story.