In a country where every new day brings a new tax (or tariff, or whatever instrument payable by the population at large), a relatively small political elite still drives around in high-end state funded Lexus & Mercedes Benz Hybrids, keeps its reasonably good and usefully tax free salaries, and lives in & owns impressive real estate.
The fact that such politicians exist in what is termed a first-world country is worthy of repeated head-scratching.
The fact that many are ostentatious about it would be amazingly sci-fi if it weren't for the apathy of the Greek population around them.
Arguably, in any country of the first world, these people would have been the subject of various ignominies -- simplest of which is, they simply wouldn't be there!
Not in Greece.
In the 18 months since Greece signed the EU-IMF bail-out plan, the ruling Socialist government has succeeded two things:
1) To increase sovereign debt by 33%
2) To save ALL government employees jobs.
Incredible!
Which begs the politically sociological question:
What is better?
a) "Eliminate" such politicians -- as in Romania's final dealings with ex president Ceausescu;
b) Be tolerant and await for the emigration permit from Australian authorities'.
Friday 30 September 2011
Wednesday 21 September 2011
Greece in 2011 in the fall...
Greece in "free fall" would be a more apt title.
I just returned from a business trip in Germany and, while most all of my colleagues were sincerely sympathetic of Greece's plight, they asked the obvious question:
"what the *$* wrong with your government -- why don't they do something?"
The answer to this question probably lies in a number of reasons.
One of these reasons is the cretins that compose Greece's present Socialist government: these are people trained to be PR con-men. Not administrators, planners, decision-makers... let alone being adept at crisis management.
Another is the sedentary civil servants & unions mafia that resists any change as far as possible; for them, the Euro & the EU membership are no longer important issues as they have already capitalised upon them through the Development and solidarity programmes of the past. No surprise, Greece's infrastructure is not far from what it was 30 years ago; likened to Africa relief funds -- had these funds been invested in the country, Greece would boast highways, rail, airports, administrative efficiency, & operational renewable energy sources.
The most important of all these reasons, I think, is Greece's Feudal type of government: over centralisation and an overpopulated Public Sector are, both, the hallmarks of a the typical feudal state where the leader held all the privileges, and bestowed them sparingly according to his most devoted subjects.
Accordingly, in Greece, closed professional, exclusive importers, exclusive suppliers... all are still carefully guarded.
The voting troops get positions for life within the civil service in exchange for unfailing devotion during elections.
In Greece every four years, the people vote the Lord into Parliament. The question is still out which form of government is better for the country: traditional hereditary or global suffrage?
I just returned from a business trip in Germany and, while most all of my colleagues were sincerely sympathetic of Greece's plight, they asked the obvious question:
"what the *$* wrong with your government -- why don't they do something?"
The answer to this question probably lies in a number of reasons.
One of these reasons is the cretins that compose Greece's present Socialist government: these are people trained to be PR con-men. Not administrators, planners, decision-makers... let alone being adept at crisis management.
Another is the sedentary civil servants & unions mafia that resists any change as far as possible; for them, the Euro & the EU membership are no longer important issues as they have already capitalised upon them through the Development and solidarity programmes of the past. No surprise, Greece's infrastructure is not far from what it was 30 years ago; likened to Africa relief funds -- had these funds been invested in the country, Greece would boast highways, rail, airports, administrative efficiency, & operational renewable energy sources.
The most important of all these reasons, I think, is Greece's Feudal type of government: over centralisation and an overpopulated Public Sector are, both, the hallmarks of a the typical feudal state where the leader held all the privileges, and bestowed them sparingly according to his most devoted subjects.
Accordingly, in Greece, closed professional, exclusive importers, exclusive suppliers... all are still carefully guarded.
The voting troops get positions for life within the civil service in exchange for unfailing devotion during elections.
In Greece every four years, the people vote the Lord into Parliament. The question is still out which form of government is better for the country: traditional hereditary or global suffrage?
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