Greek Statistics...

...not withstanding, Greek parliamentarians persist in calling one another names while the country they actually represent sinks lower.

Beside the usual chaff from the inane but vociferous "left-wing", even the major party subscribes to and voices the sweet siren song of "down with everything".


While this is going on, I wonder if there is a country out there willing to offer political asylum to Greek nationals in quest of a serious home for their families?

Most important: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

God Knows* we need a better year.

Are we going to get it?

As far as "better" is inside each and every one of us, let's hope we can do better.





*Keeping the deity symbolic, for those who do not believe in any some such.

Europe's Next Television Star

That would be George Papa-whatever, Greece's loquacious Finance Minister. This 49 year old obscure academic and one time minor civil servant has finally found his calling**.

In the space of a few months, George has propelled himself into what is sure to become the hottest item for TV channels and studios worldwide.

George may not be good at doing anything -0- but he sure is great at talking about it!
And talk he does!

Lately he took Britain's BBC by storm in a shattering show.

This comes as a sequel to a host of other performances at CNN, the BBC in December, and lately, the choice of Greek television's morning talk shows.

Just you watch! He may not look like much -- but he sounds like a few million dollars...

...And that's exactly how much -- and more -- he'll have in his pocket when he is over his latest tour!



(He needs some sprucing up, but he is still a killer.)

In his spare time, George moonlights as CFO for a country. Not bad for a kid that barely made it through College!


**To give credit where it is due, the man has worked -- somewhat. This is more than most (all ) of his co-ministers can claim. His star colleague is a woman named Louka Something, whose latest face lift has given her a permanent smile of dyspepsia. Great woman, the sort of person to make holders of Greek passports proud.

Greece: on the road to recovery?

Greeks don't seem to think so. In the past month a rumoured Euro 2,7 billion left the country in private placements abroad. Despite reassuring noises made by the Minister of Finance, it seems that December's capital outflows will happily beat that.

For a country that has no plan other than the rather scaremongering "tax the rich", 800.000 people on public payroll, and no clear plan for cutting costs... capital outflow comes as no surprise.

So, where does that leave us?

Nowhere. The tree of growth is old and it is tired. And the same old witch-hunt (we'll get back at the dirty rich... and feed our own) still applies.

Thinking of investing? This is a country of surprises.
Such as the fiscal legislation which changes annually.
Such as the electorate -- your target market perhaps?
Even that can change: the prime minister is planning to use immigrants as a way of winning elections.

How genius is that!

Time and time again, Greek governments seem to confirm that the primary objective on their social policy is to impoverish, rather than to improve: the proverbial "I want to see the neighbour's cow die" instead of "I want a cow like - or better than -- the neighbour's".

Investing in Greece...(3)

You're kidding, right?

Check this out:

* S&P's rating fell to BBB+
* The Greek Minister of Finance ), one Papaconstantinou, said: “There is a lot of will to do whatever it takes to bring down the deficit,” Mr Papaconstantinou told the Financial Times on Wednesday.” But he did NOT specify the way.
* “We are starting off with this huge credibility deficit and there’s not much we can do to change it immediately,” Mr Papaconstantinou said on Wednesday. “Our big concern is how we buy some time. The kind of things we’ve started doing are a significant departure from the past but they don’t produce results right away.” What kind of things??? For one, I know of three companies the fiscal authorities visited and left with some cash in pocket. Guess how many more there are.

Is this part of the things "we started"...


Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.


The Greece motto:

"Important measures are taken to ensure the rich become poor without fail, while unerringly retaining the poor in the their poverty."


Invest?
You crazy? In Greece we don't like investors.

Living, Investing... in Greece (2) Investing

For the official blurb go here.
The site contains the usual mish-mash of syncopated info and a host of unsubstantiated reasons to... bring your solar panels to Greece.

For a more serious, no nonsensical approach and (much) better advice, go here.


For the hands-on experience, here are a few pointers...

Living, Investing... in Greece: (2) {Don't} Invest In Greece

Fiscal legislation changes annually; so do rates for corporate and personal taxation;

In times of crisis, extra contributions are levied -- at whim and will of the powers that be;

In Greece figures are notoriously unreliable, whether they be official, published, etc...

In Greece, administrative and/or government commitments can be notoriously unreliable; all it takes is a change of gov and you have to renegotiate the deal and the contract (look at CosCo for example).

Bureaucratic barriers to entry are high: there is even an organisation set up to steer investors away from the uncooperative administration;

Greek administrative legislation and bureaucracy, both, protect the Greek administration at the expense of the people; don't expect to get your papers in order unless you believe in miracles (or a miracle actually took place!);

Allegedly (by all) Greek Government agencies are notoriously corrupt; building permits, sundry fiscal issues, etc, will boost your admin (or legal counsel) budget; interstingly Greece has an automatic tax settlement method: give me X and you've got a deal.

In a move typical of modern Greek politics, the new governments is promising to stimulate the market and foreign investment by... raising income tax and capital gains tax

Athens is in the bottom 50 of (un)welcoming cities; Athens is particularly unfriendly to toddlers, children, and the ageing population (no where to walk, the few pavements are full of murderous potholes, there are rarely damages awarded for any personal claims...); to be on the safe side, your family will have to live elsewhere -- or relatively secluded from everyday life.

Athenians do not like, nor do they welcome, foreigners; fortunately, they dislike Greeks more.

The current leading opinion on labour matters is that work is a form of slavery; "discussions " on Greek TV resound of 50's Soviet propagandist illustrations of the West: business is the bad guy, conspiracies abound and many global perpetrators thereof are out to get Greece and its inhabitants, ranting and raving is the key (in short: the Soviet "West").


Do invest if you are occasional; you do not expect to employ anyone; can go ahead with the help of legal counsel alone; if you are thinking of real estate.

Some things to be proud of...

"...Αλλά υπάρχουν στιγμές κατά τις οποίες ένας λαός οφείλει, αν θέλη να μείνη μεγάλος, να είναι ικανός να πολεμήση, έστω και χωρίς καμμίαν ελπίδα νίκης. Μόνον διότι πρέπει."
(There are moments when a nation, willing to remain a great nation, must be ready to fight, even if it means fighting a war without any hope of victory...)

Powerful words spoken by men with balls to men with balls**.

None of them owned a Porsche Cayenne and none spoke with a whiny mew.

That was Greece in the '40s and those were people to be proud of -- some of them at least.



Today's Greeks are much more comfortable and many have the ultimate symbol of success: the Porsche Cayenne.

They are less fortunate in other ways. Today's Greeks have less to be proud of. Indeed, in a "global world" they have very little to be proud of: check out the Minister of National Defence, * for example.







* to do him justice, the guy has some experience in urban militia: he spent some time studying at faco (Paris2) which used to be populated by right-wing activists.

**or women, insert as appropriate. In the quote above it was Ioannis Metaxas, a General)

Plus ca change, plus c'est... changé!!

I was in hospital for a week (not recommended) and spent some time talking to physios. Our short converastions took us to trips abroad; for the most part to Paris, France. That's where my home used to be. (Everyone in the hospital asked me where my home used to be.)

Well you know what we say about les Parisiens... unhospitable, unwelcoming, bad-tempered, etc.

The physios -- both -- as well as one of the nurses who spent part of her honeymoon there spoke to me about "how nice people were in Paris; hospitable, nice, helpful!"

Some things do change.

Maybe Athenians could follow suit.

Political Philandering... the extreme right meets the extreme left

Walking past the Greek Socialist Party's HQ in Athens the other day I heard a snippet of a conversation. As two persons entered the building, I heard one saying to the other "...a good position indeed! And he's not even one of ours" (in fact the person said, "...he isn't even a party subscriber"...!)

How many times have I heard this, both in France & in Greece! It is certainly not a uniquely Socialist matter, the incident above is fortuitous.

Nowadays I rarely hear this in France any more...

But anyway, it got me thinking.

Politics & personal gain is thicker than water. Appurtenance is everything: one must belong & thereby acquire a stronghold in order to survive -- or concede defeat. You can't fight them, join them. Tight-knit groups.

In non Anglo-Saxon democracies the most vociferous and staunch political fighters traditionally have been the (seriously) left wingers. In recent times, a new force, the (serious) right wing have surfaced. One only needs to look at French, Austrian, German elections and/ or political gatherings. In Greece, the "Official" exponent of the "official right wing is LAOS (the acronym read "people"). Laos is very soft core compared to its northern brethren; Greeks don't really like political hard core despite their rampant adolescent behaviour.

To a degree all of these parties tout a populist approach mixed with half baked nationalistic superiority.

There is, it seems, an interesting difference between the Greeks and the rest: the Greek right wing talk seems to echo the left-wing feeling. In fact the die-hard self-appointed left wing evangelists are just about as clear in their nationalistic-populist speech as the Right wingers are abroad.

I know one expects to hear bullshit bandied about in the political arena -- but this is overcooked.

It is also too bad, when the voice of moderation & down to earth common sense comes from a party like Laos. They rarely refer to "ours"; they, as all extreme right wing players always think in terms of inclusion rather than exclusion.

And their popularity rose 50% from 2007.

Ok, it's still only <6%.


Another unusual thing is that Greek TV is resolute in its support of anything left-ish: hard luck stories, the rich becoming richer at the expense of the poor who become poorer. There is a good measure of pseudo-populist content mixed with expensive looking ladies brandishing their designer wear or underwear, all served with a few twists:

* the TV propaganda does not touch the tax-free income of its stars. It is not quite clear why the presenters do not touch this issue...

* there is no escape from misery.


So far, only one TV persona /writer /political commentator turned politician, Ms L. Kanelli, makes any sense and is thereby worth listening to. Other than the wit value, she makes sense. She also knows her history and her grasp of the Greek language is refreshingly superior. Compared to her, other politicians are lukewarm at best.


*L. Kanelli is an MP with the local Communists. Amazingly, she is also one person who defended Milosevic.

Elections in Greece: Well, whaddya know, Socialists again! ND vs PASOK: 0-1

Greece voted Socialist yesterday, ending a 6 year tenure of the conservative New Democracy party.

Mr George Papandreou, leader of the Socialist party, a US-born male, not the wittiest boy in town, is to become the 3rd generation prime minister in Greece -- following his grandfather and father.
Sign of the times: Greece honours (nepotist) tradition!

In fine, however, these electoral results remind me of a singles tennis match; as it happens, it is not really the Socialists who won, but the Conservatives who lost.
Whatever.
Hopefully, people living in Greece will not have to suffer, yet again, the customary PASOK arrogance...


Further: digging deeper into electoral mechanics, there is no doubt that from an operational point of view one had to vote for one or the other of the major parties. Failure to do so could easily lead to a minority in parliament, in turn leading to complications, frail coalitions, and ultimately new elections... ad nauseam.

Yet, a good 20% of the voters chose one of the other parties -- i.e. the ones you have on the menu even though everyone knows that their cumulative contribution to day-to-day administration and their grasp of social matters, is nil. They are vociferous and stultifying of course.

So why do people choose them?
I believe it is a non-rational (as opposed to irrational) vote: it is an emotional choice. Nostalgia and the sadness for lost causes and broken dreams
E.g. why else, if not for die-hard emotional reasons, would one vote for Soviet-type communists? God (Lenin) Bless them, the Soviet Union does not exist any more!

And you get many others, too: mostly revolutionary of one ilk or another; not to be outdone, there are humorous choices too (ex: KOTES= HE. N.S.)


So, fortunately, for all those who have the guts to vote anything BUT utilitarian: in Greece there was choice -- 16 choices in fact.


How many countries are thus fortunate?

"DE-BAIT", in Greece

On Sept 21st 2009 the leaders of the two major political parties in Greece, Nea Democratia and Panhellenic Socialist Movement, met before the TV cameras for a show reminiscent of the Eurovision trash-song contest.
Minus the actual voting, of course. That comes on Oct 4th.
That's a shame because,

• it's the best part of the (any) Eurotrash show,

• it would save taxpayers in Greece an estimated (and mind-boggling) Euro 115-125 million in subsidies to politicians & their parties.

Not to be outdone by the leading role politicians, TV entertainers ensured their own full star billings by extending the event on either chronological side: Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we had pre and post debate discussions and shows. Free content.
The pre's analysing, and speculating on what the two leader were to say; the latter analysing and and speculating on what the leaders actually did say (or not, as the case may be).
Not to put a too fine point on it, little was exchanged that had political consequence.

May I dare propose the following brief but (I believe) no less accurate summary?

• New Demo: I've had it with all the bozos around me. Same old bull, plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose. Country's run by a bunch of lazy morons, anyway.
• Pan Socialist: "I've got a dream, I've got a vision: I'm riding the donkey and leading the country. It is my turn to ride the donkey. They're not the only ones with bills to pay..."

Allegedly, viewership was low in the <24 year olds.

Who said Greek voters are not choosy when it comes to TV entertainment?

"...votez corruption..." Will the Greeks hold out (and on?)?

During French elections two years ago, the slogan "vote for/ choose corruption over fascism..." was aired and heard quite often, urging voters to avoid falling for the extreme Right Wing's sweet siren song of paradise to come. The matter there was clear: choose the lesser evil
As some of us know, the electoral results were in line with the injunction: France chose a run of the mill gov ("corruption") -- rather than the Right Wing paradise.

I Greece, we are past democracy and related sentimentalist bullshit. Voting is a football match, only more expensive and even less fair.

To go back to the french paradigm, one of our problems in Greece is that voters are not faced with a similar choice between two or more evils -- or chosing between windfall solutions; it is all about making a quick buck -- 1.4bucks, to be precise, the Euro having clambered up the scale lately.

So the up and coming elections in Greece are really about choosing the party in which we are best connected, and hoping they will win. If we are connected to the winners , we too can hope for a small share of the spoils...

It is a pity.

Of course this is not a unique case... bemoaning the situation in Greece as if it were better elsewhere, because there is no evidence that politicians are better elsewhere.

It is just that things are so blatantly obvious and unrestrained in Greece, that public Administration enjoys writing the rules to its apparatchiks satisfaction at any junction, that rule of law is talked about more than it is applied, that living in Greece is best for people above the bog-standard law. And of course, Investing in Greece is best left to people who are well connected politically and otherwise, and can hope for serious government contracts -- and/or government influenced favours.


In light of the above, Greeks have held up pretty well. While people living in Athens are generally hostile, with psychopathological aggressive tendencies, they survive. Without proper political representation, un-empowered police (who are still the "bad guys"), iffy schools, expensive lifestyle and expensive real estate...
Only the country's representative Basket Ball team has something to say for itself. Indeed, in that respect it probably is unique in its partiotic duties.

So, the electoral motto no one voices out loud in Greece is, "Who cares about Democracy?
Who is it, who knows somebody, who knows the King, who holds the purse strings? That's who you vote for!"