Greece today: the unbridled pursuit of self-interest...

... this seemed to be the national sport in Greece, ever since an erstwhile prime minister called Andreas Papandreou had, purportedly, made short work of a matter of misappropriation of public money saying "only a few hunderd thousand... (euro) Not much of a scandal!"

Apparently, many people profited... we do not know how many but reportedly many politicians and their cronies are in the know.
For those who managed to put aside their individual spoils of plunder and have moved their money out of the country (apparently still around euro ~100 billion), life can be cool; Greece is beautiful, the food is good, prices are going down slowly. It is hot this time of the year -- but, hey, it's summer after all!

For all the others who have to foot a large part of the bill of the formers' pursuit of private interest, life is less cool. Take a look at what's happening back at the ranch, Greece:

• Total workforce: 4.83 mill
• Unemployed: 1.37 mill
• Undeclared labour: 1.54 mill these are persons who do not pay tax and do not pay social security contributions either...

• ...which leaves us with 1.92 mill active persons in Greece to keep the country ticking and, hopefully, to help it grow with their value creating labour efforts.
• Out of these, any number between 900,000 - 1,170,000 are civil servants (no-one seems to know the exact number).
  According to the OECD, Greece's civil servants are the Western world's least productive coming in at 70th position. Unfortunately they are also costly, comparable to Italy's -- who however are rated much higher for efficiency, and much unlike Germany's who are both cheaper and much more efficient.
  So, persons of high cost & low productivity (efficiency) cannot be expected to produce much of the country's wealth.

 This in turn leaves us with 1.0 mill or less legally declared persons to do the business of leading Greece out of the perennial financial tunnel!

This could mean either that Greece is a huge investment opportunity, or that it is a dangerous place to keep your money.

The Greek state is loosing around euro ~33 mill per day.

Invest or pull your money out?
You choose.

Summer Olympics 2012. Calling London...

Had it been elegant, cultured, human, humane, techie, simple, it would have been British.
Had it been kitsch, it would have been memorable...

The opening ceremony of the 30th modern Olympic Games was none of the above. It was simply a mess.

One person kindly proposed that it was "chaotic". Ηardly.
There is charm iν Chaos. The opening of London's opening ceremony had none.

The ceremony was purportedly conceived by Director Danny Boyle, whose more memorable creations include "Slumdog Millionaire", a successful film. He should have remained in film rather than mess up London's Olympic show.


The mess was saved somewhat, at the end, by the boring, wooden voice of Dr Rogge, the Olympic boss, reading an unnecessarily long-winded platitudes, which put the preceding mess in better light after all. The camera showed people giving this speech its rightful attention: looking at and making faces to, said camera.

The arrival of the Olympic flame was beautiful, elegant, and, as one person observed, "this, indeed, is what I expect from Great Britain".

The show ended as a gig with Sir Paul (McCartney) in concert.We all enjoy a concert and the camera made a point of showing participants chanting and swaying to "Hey Jude" (a British song).

--------- ?????????????????????????

Purportedly, the show (for that's what it was) wished to show the world snippets of Britain's history and show the world the illustrious men & women who were or are, British. What Britain's all about, really. The result is lame.

According to this show, Britain is all about one or two successful TV shows & movies, and about football and about a couple of hit singers & composers.
Oh yes, so we all know the internet -- do we know who's behind it so to speak...? Sir Timothy (Tim Berners-Lee) who invented the internet. He's British too. Fortunately someone, bless him, remembered Tim Berners-Lee and he was there, at the show. Kudos!

In more detail, the history lesson went on to teach us that Mr Beckham, a football player, is British and so is James Bond (who does not actually exist).
And that rap is black and British and so is Mr Bean. And that a dark looking W. Churchill was also British (although you had to know it's he -- not obvious). Oh yes, Harry Potter is also a Brit -- at least his creator is. (The above are mostly English by the way, but that's neither here nor there.)


All of the above is good to know. Beckham, J Bond, etc, and people like them are illustrious Britons.


So what does that make Sir Isaac Newton? Where is he from? Or, Adam or Locke, or (what's his name?) William Shakespeare? Oscar Wilde? The Who, Pink Floyd, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir John Elgar, Agatha Christie, B Russell, Sir Alec Guinness, AC/DC, Clash, and what about "The Stones", and I can go on and on and on, and I am not even British!


Because that's what it looks like: someone has to remember an illustrious Briton or two -- as an afterthought perhaps? It is good to be "today" as long as you know how you got there: via yesterday.


I admit my weakness: I expected better. Frankly, I think Britain deserves better.

Don't give Greece any more money. Give money directly to Greek citizens directly...

Were such a thing possible, it would be the thing to do.

Greece is deeply into its 3rd official year of crisis, sovereign debt problems, and austerity -- and nothing has been done to solve anything. Astonishingly, four (4) successive Greek governments have not implemented any serious reform or taken any sustainable -- nay, even useful -- measures*.

That leaves Greece's Euro-partners in quandary, hoping that maybe the Deus ex Machina will ultimately save the day... because the local administration, the Greek government and their cronies certainly won't.

The only people who can make a difference are the Greeks themselves. This is not to say they will -- but they are the only recourse left:

The last article (a. 120**) of the Greek Constitution, a document that is supposedly still in force (not that Greek authorities pay any more than lip service to such legal backwaters)

"To safeguard the Constitution is left to the patriotism of all Greeks who are entitled, and duty bound, to resist by all means anyone who attempts with violence to infringe and bypass it."


A man from Ierapetra in Crete, wrote a short letter to the local tax authorities and the Ministry of Finance, protesting against a tax return which, with an income arbitrarily beefed up by tax authorities requests him to pay income tax on non-existent income.

The case for the tax administration relies on external signs of wealth, such as a 21year old, 750cc engined car and ownership of his house, not connected to the national grid,  officially valued at 13k. The man had no taxable income and spent a documented  ~2,300 for the whole year.

Concluding, the man referred to article 120 of the Constitution of Greece and noted:
"a) In choosing between going without food for three (3) months in order to pay the tax you have requested, I prefer not to pay you anything.
b) In choosing between becoming a suicide victim or a killer, I prefer to become your killer.
c) If you have made no mistakes in the tax return you sent me, you must be scoundrels, fraudsters, and thieves.

With no respect,

Nicholas Aretoulis." (my translation)
Taken (without express permission) from the excellent blog "Filoftero"

*   The Greek government announced recently a reduction of national debt to just under 135% of GDP, down from an alleged 160% 12 months ago. This is the result of reduced imports -- in fact a balanced import-export situation -- especially reduced oil consumption, and reductions in pensions. actually and amazingly, the public payroll in Greece increased albeit very slightly in the past year...
* * Η τήρηση του Συντάγματος επαφίεται στον πατριωτισμό των Ελλήνων, που δικαιούνται και υποχρεούνται να αντιστέκονται με κάθε μέσο εναντίον οποιουδήποτε επιχειρεί να το καταλύσει με τη βία.

Greeks ain't got it...

I.e.
1) they don't get it
2) their reps ain't got the credentials to do the job.

Let's start with 2 first:
Greece Inc is being kept alive through transfusions and the blood is running out. 35 years ago, when Chrysler was down the drain, a savvy CEO saved the day. Examples of turnarounds abound, I just thought of that one randomly.
Greece is down the drain and what do the well intentioned (no doubt) newly elected Greeks do?
They send a near-defunct president and a few nobodies with no human interaction skills, even less work experience, and "no-plans-yet", to negotiate change in the reform memorandum.

The "I have no clue" team will meet with Brussels officials to negotiate.

Now, how cool is that?
Whaddya think they will talk about?
Methinks the discussion will go something like: "you know, we have already put (a) heavy burden(s) and we face social unrest"
"But you haven't implemented anything -- you only raised taxes! Of course, I can't tell you how to do what you want to do... What do you propose instead?"
"We would like an extension."
"But how will the extension make things better? What will you gain from the extension? What can you do later that you cannot do earlier?"
"These things take time"
"When will you reduce public spending?"
"We have already..."
"No, no, now you are simply NOT paying suppliers and debts, and there is a backlog of billions to be spent in the future. We mean, when will you slash the public sector"
"It is difficult..."
(Mental response)"For goodness sake, we're wasting our time here".

The guys just can't do the job.
They don't have the skills-set, nor the competencies for the job.

The people Greeks vote into their Parliament are clueless when it comes to actually doing something concrete; like boiling an egg, for example.

1) They don't get it.

The country is in deep trouble and has been kept alive by other peoples' borrowed money. This may not last.

Other peoples' money has been poured into Greece, bit by bit. Until now, all Greek politicians did was to keep creditors happy so that the money batches came in. I.e. promise anything, throw in a few austerity killers for good measure (as in, never give VAT returns, but bring forward by one month all VAT payments TO the state regardless of whether the invoice has been paid; impose additional income tax for past years;) and pocket the latest batch, pay the payroll and survive until the next go.

Once the money hit the State coffers, Greek politicians return to their internal squabbling for a while -- until the money runs out again.
No structural change -- let alone reform -- has taken place in the near-three years since Greece went on the bailout bandwagon.

Greeks don't get it: they have to get rid of these people.

When people default they risk losing their house.
Greeks risk losing their land.
They just don't get it.

Greeks' erratic voting, explained

Greece voted on Sunday 17th June (for yet another time this year) and the results(1) are revealing: majority to the conservative New Democracy led by a well-inspitalstentioned cretin, A. Samaras and runner up pseudo left-wing Syriza, led by con man wise-guy A. Tsipras. Syriza represents the politico-administrative mob in Greece.

The amazing result of 1 out of 4 Greeks voting for the mob is not as amazing as it seems at first.
This is what is happening:

1.  the Greek mob's previous party cover was PASOK; as this party dwindled and with it, the support it gave to its hard-core patrons, originally known as the "Green Guards" (MPs, union leaders, activists, civil servants, purchasing departments in hospitals, etc). So, a chunk of its supporters moved lock stock & barrel to a new, revamped party called Syriza. The idea is good: you reposition yourself more to the left, the left being nostalgic chic in Greece, and the PASOK left colours having eroded completely. 
2. Syriza already grouped all the starved "euro" left-wingers who, having bombed in all elections since WW-2 never had the chance to place a permanent hand in the till -- till now.

• Thus moving, the PASOK "wise guys" join forces with Greece's wannabe wise guys and create the 2nd largest party -- the PASOK of the future.
• So, Syriza is the party of the Greek "now is my turn to make my killing" mob.

 What is amazing is that 1 out of 4 Greeks believe that there is still time to make a quick kill -- even with the EU commission, the IMF & ECB breathing down their necks.

We must keep in mind that the runner up's pre-election slogans included, increasing the public sector payroll by recruiting another 100,000 civil servants, increase the salaries in the Public Sector (recently salaries in the public sector were cut -- as were pensions, unfortunately). He also vowed to tax business turn-over, to use individuals' bank deposits to finance all these changes and to change the course of the future for the European Union and the world at large...

					The party has no concrete plans or strategy or tactics to offer, however!
		In the face of such bullshit do the Syriza voters know something all the others do not?
		(1)Nea Democratia 29,66%,Syriza 26,89%, Pasok 12,28%, Independent Greeks (conservative) 7,51%, Chryssi Avgi (far right wing) 6,92%, Dimar (moderate left wing) 6,26%, KKE (communist party) 4,50%.

Greece's erratic political behaviour... explained

After many years of raw thinking, and dissatisfied with the explanations proffered this far, I finally caught on!
The answer to the question "why do Greeks vote so erratically, in other words, why are they politically akin to an adolescent looking for his or her role in life?" is,

Greeks suffer from the fact that they have no knowledge, no experience, and no clue of what a real country is like and how a real country functions.... 

I.e. the vast majority of Greeks never lived in your average, run-of-the mill, normal country, where a modicum of legality, morality, and adhesion to the common good are observed and sanctioned.
Also, where politicians & media do not push the bullshit to exponential factors.
Greeks do not know what it is like to live & work in a normal country, for any length of time -- nor have they been educated in any way to think accordingly.
Those that have lived elsewhere, are too few (and too disgusted) to make much of any difference.


For many years, many people within the EU and some people outside the EU are bewildered at the Greeks' voting again and again for the same self-serving and scandal-ridden politicians, at shouldering huge taxes to support their huge and inefficient contingent of party-driven civil servants. Lately, Greece's successive socialist governments have increased income tax, slashed medical care, cut pensions, and pledged the country's real-estate and other goodies to receive a massive EU bail-out to support, once again, Greece's huge and inefficient contingent of party-driven civil servants  and socialist party cronies.

Difficult to understand indeed, and many explanations have been offered but none that could adequately explain -- apart from sheer idiocy, which would be a statistical aberration.

SO, here it is, ladies & gentlemen:
Q - Why do Greeks sometimes act as overgrown, disgruntled, adolescents???
A - Because they haven't seen better, they don't know nor have they ever been taught any better!

A tighter Euro-union, especially one where decisions are made by persons other than Greece's political leaders and inspired by Greece's administration, could be the best thing that can happen to Greece this side of the end of WW-2.

Greece is in the wake of new elections. This, in and of itself, would not be very troublesome -- bar the cost of elections that Greece can hardly afford.
The problem is that Greek voters seem to persist in their preference for the partisan, "we will show 'em" type, of party.
The dregs of popularity of Pasok, Greece's dying socialist party, were picked up by another party named "Syriza" that is, in many aspects, a re-launch of Pasok, with a refurbished "left-wing" architecture; Pasok had lost the lustre of the left in recent years and the brand has eroded -- hence the re-branding and repositioning.

Fortunately for Greeks, 70-80% of the vote is NOT in favour but coalitions may serve where voters do not!

In matters political, Greeks are fatally attracted to things left of centre. The left syndrome does not affect Greeks' predilection for expensive cars, designer clothes, condos and sundry, but it manifests itself in their elections. You do not have to be a staunch leftist to attract, in Greece it is enough to brand yourself left... SO, the "left" parties bunched together do gather a sizeable chunk of the vote.


Scandal after scandal, in the 30 years after Greece joined the EU, the Greek "political-administrative" complex has plundered billions of euro, if one is to believe the reports, the court-cases, the media allegations and what seems to be a plethora of evidence. Yet Greece's politicians are still vowing for a seat in parliament promising to "turn over a new leaf". Presumably, the idea is that having made their stash Greek politicians vow to keep their hands away from the till. For now.



So, since the powers that be are not interested in the welfare of their country and the Greek electorate is confused, hoodwinked or, for whatever the ailment, unable to take charge,there are three ways of saving the country:
a) change the rules of government
b) keep the rules and appoint a foreigner to do the job.
c) hope for a miracle.

All Greeks should opt for c anyway.

The rest is up to them, unless the EU saves the day. Again.

How do you dupe 11 million people?*

You lie to them*. If you are a Greek politician.

Or withhold information from them. If you are Greek media.


It is not enough that Mr Tsipras, rep for Syriza, a party that won 17% in the May 2012 Greek elections, is much sought after by EU media & some US channels, as the clown of the day "to make our day"; back home the media let it be understood that the popularity is due to the man's scintillating wit (chaff would be more to the point)! Amazingly, no one in Greece seems to realise that people are laughing ΑΤ the man!

There is worse.
In a yet fresher case in the never ending spiral of Greece's abysmal plunge into the bottomless pit of unethical waste, it has come to light that the son of a Syriza political preacher is a criminal convicted of armed robbery and possession of explosives.

"I am not responsible for what my son does" you might say -- even though "you raised said son" I would say. However, the father of said son, said neither of the above. He, the father, and his wife, the mother, maintained that in some circles their son's armed robbery "could be construed as a revolutionary act, an act of defiance against....(whoever, whatever)".

How nice.Why don't we all unite to bail out people like this Mr Voutsis... so that they can proliferate and
perhaps teach our children why what are hitherto known as common criminals are in fact uncommon revolutionaries...

In another corruption sideline, aptly represented by the image of trash below, authorities unearthed large quantities of expensive medication, prescribed by a GP to fictitious patients charged to Social Security (named IKA in Greece) and purchased at said GP's spouse's pharmacy -- unsurprisingly, both GP & pharmacist are MP for PASOK, Greece's scandal-ridden Socialist party.



The matter was brought to the attention of various Ministers, including the then Health Minister, Loverdos and one of his cronies, a certain Koutroumanos (ex union dignitary and general purpose activist). Of course, the matter was promptly forgotten.


In the light of these never-ending cases that see the light of day only to be buried by their media, Greeks face a very difficult future.



So, why should we get together to bail out yet again a country where, confidence in its representatives is the last thing that comes to mind, the preceding words listed comprising beauties such as corruption, swindling, fraud, etc similar soft-core characterisations.

We shouldn't.


Not unless Greeks change their representatives in some magical way... Given the latest polls where the adolescent rantings of Syriza (we'll show 'em we don't owe anything to anyone") seem to be gaining ground, radical change seems unlikely.

Maybe Greece will get lucky and a political Maecenas will come forth and will be imposed upon the country --Imposed is the operative word because in Greece people who seem to favour common sense over bullshit only manage a paltry ~3% of the vote, testimony to contemporary Greeks' insistent addiction to the absurd.




* Paraphrasing the fascinating book by Mr A. Andrews "How do you kill 11 million people". {The answer being, "you lie to them" -- but that is only a small part of the whole answer. Read the book!}

Invest in Greece -- today

At the present time, Invest in Greece could be construed as synonymous to, "taking leave of your senses" and "going bonkers".
From a more hands on perspective, it is simply a bad joke, for employees and investors alike.

It is a bad joke for employees because the total income tax burden has risen to an aggregate of over 45% on average for all Greeks, wages have gone down, and the various extras to pay (social security, etc) costs another 18% and, worse of all, the Greek socialist governments often give in to urges imposing an extra, "retrospective", tax... as last year where a well-fed socialist finance minister imposed an extra 5% tax off the top, just as an afterthought!

All in all, if you are to live and work in Greece, it's best to be an EU, UN, or embassy employee (all are exempt from tax & other Hellenic burdens). Or you could opt for the black labour market, as have 33% of the workforce according to the national statistics org. -- you may make less, but what you get is yours. As an added bonus you are not subject to any bright additional taxation ideas, Greek politicians may come up with...

Investing in Greece: a (bad for the money) joke.

It's not that the country is devoid of any beauty, history, monuments, of natural resources, of beautiful landscape, of beautiful weather, of sunshine or of beautiful women and some good looking men.. and then some.
It is that none of these -- or anything else for that matter -- is available, or propitious to, conducting business. Given applicable legislation, custom, applicable rules and unclear regulations, Greece is clearly not open for business; business is just not how this country works --

• Yes, there is the sun, but getting the license to operate a photovoltaic site meant you had to wait 19 - forever for an license to operate, or pay up an easy 12% of the stated investment value;
• Yes there are 3000 islands, many of which are inhabited and all of which can be beautiful to cruise, but you may be barred by disembarking your cruise-ship passengers for any number of reasons, or any number of disgruntled activists, without prior notice (for example, "PAME", a vociferous group representing about 0.8% of the electorate).
• Yes you may build (or renovate) a house -- but the planning permission may take +38months (actual case in Mykonos) or cost a few thou in permission "acceleration" kick-backs.
• .....

All this stands UNLESS of course, you belong to one of a few dozen families that influence or control the Greek administration-governmental complex or you are yourself a politician. But in that case, Greece itself, the country, is your investment, i.e. your property in a sense of the word...

If you are not, here is what you are up against:
Cash-flow: it does not flow. And local banks are totally dry, they have been milked to near death by the Greek State. And so will you be milked...

VAT is payable immediately following the invoice date, regardless of whether said invoice is paid or not. VAT is never returned unless the local tax office contained members of your close family. In the old times, you could pay a kick-back of 5-10% and recoup the rest -- but back then there was some cash availability...

Social security contributions: usually payable 2 months following the salary month, now they are to be paid immediately, in the first days of the month following the employees salary disbursement. Also they have increased -- albeit by less than 1%.

Fiscal, tax: legislation usually changes every year. Lately, it has been changing with alarming regularity in mid fiscal year! Hardly the stuff to inspire investors.

GAAP: it is a patchwork of 17,598 pages (in A4 official size pages), containing numerous contradictory items and many unclear regulations. GAAP in Greece were once guestimated by PWC to add 1.5% to hidden costs. Most importantly, the governing principle behind Greek GAAP is that business is suspect.

Controlling agencies and fines: in Greece, a visit from a controlling agency (usually two-three persons casually clad, often unshaven and sometimes unwashed ) means, a fine. The fine is served in a friendly spirit whereby "you can take us to court, and I'm sure the judge will absolve you". Meanwhile, in order to contest you have to pay 50% of the fine up front. There is no intermediate recourse in most cases!
The governing concept here is not enmity but suspicion. "You are guilty of something, no doubt. Even I can't tell what it is, you know what it is. If it is, the judge will sort it out."

 And that, as saying goes, is that.

So, we are all welcome in Greece -- to throw money at it, best do it in cartloads.

As to investments & business...this is the time to repeat, business and investment is just not how this country works now!

The Peoples' Socialist Republic of Greece

It is not a good time for Greece. Really. It seems an everlasting reality that a few vociferous and disgruntled - adolescent sounding voices, always get the upper hand in Greece -- and send the whole country down the drain. 

 The two major parties are no longer major and many of the politicos are out of a billet. So far so good.

Unfortunately however, Greece's newly reshuffled parliament offers little else to write good things home about, as, what the majors lost the neo nationalists of Golden Dawn and the soft-core soviets, Syriza, won.

The good thing about the former is their investment in accompanying little old ladies across the street and to the bank & back, so no harm comes to them. So far so good. It's when they start banging emigrants & left wing extremists on the head that things get out of hand. And as this happens quite often things are out of hand already. As they themselves content, "if I have to choose between democracy and my country, I will choose my country."

On the other hand, Syriza, led by Mr Tsipras was asked to form a government -- whereupon Mr Tsipras promptly went public to announce that the new government (should any arise) will abolish planned public sector cuts, reign in controls on "the bankers", check them out for having received Euro 200m (in which country?), return certain taxes, provide support to SMEs (what else is new), preserve the public sector payroll, and turn its back to all austerity plans...

Put differently, Mr Tsipras is heralding the Peoples Socialist Democratic Republic of Greece, in other words, he is promising to uphold and protect all of what Greeks apparently voted against! Ineffective, arrogant, and inefficient Public Sector, the authoritarian Administration -- the kick-backs as well perhaps?
It is interesting that

Of course what he really wants is elections again -- and throws the bait to civil servants who are presently unsure of themselves as there is a major assessment centre scheduled to appraise all Greek Civil Service employees.

It is sad that no-one took any time to pay more than lip service to what Mr Tsipras said, as if it was all a song and journalists just hummed along. No one challenged what he said, and the bullshit went down beautifully. Maybe the hot weather helped numb people's wit. 


Similarly, Greece's media, hardly Europe's finest by any stretch of the imagination, seem to have hummed along as well -- or maybe they take bullshit for granted coming from politicians.


Or is it that there is difficulty sorting wheat from the chaff any more in Greece?

Elections in Greece this week-end. So, what else is new?

Parliamentary elections were held in Greece, on Sunday, 6th May 2012. They were also held in France -- but there, the results indicate, indeed, a change.
Back to Greece. Among a lot of hooh-hah of justly disappointed voters, disillusioned with their politicians' inefficiency, incapacity, and rampant incompetency to deal with the country's pressing issues, the results in the polls was, ultimately, nothing...

Nothing happened.

Abstinence was the winner with 40%. For the remainder, there was a reshuffle to the detriment of the two leading parties, Nea Dimokratia and the Socialist Pasok -- although the former is still the minority leader. People did their best to demonstrate their disgust with the two leading parties, voting for whatever was left.

However, for all the voters' efforts in Greece's May 2012 elections, it is still the same pack of incompetent, self-righteous and self-centred personsvying for popular attention who will enter Greece's famed & historically named Boule come their first working day. (Whenever that may be, work not being Greece's politicians' forte.)

An example of Henry Ford's car colouring scheme: "you are free to choose whatever colour you like as long as it's black". Greece's voters had some colours available -- but, bar a few exceptions, it is the colours of yore. So Greek voters -- those who actually did vote -- opted for the left-over parties, mostly of the left wing.

And "left" picked up, a "left wing" party came in 2nd, for the first time.

The left wing parties in Greece have always sounded like thwarted adolescents, defining themselves by negation and fairy-tales rather than proposing anything concrete. Like many adolescents, they sound like they are looking for their place and calling in this life -- but, unlike most adolescents, the still haven't found their calling, many decades down the line.
Indeed, the charming leader the best performing party, SYRIZA, named Tsipras has the added advantage of looking like an adolescent as well as sounding like one!

There may, however, be hope for this country, beset by corruption and Soviet-ism, both: there is a small movement of concerned persons, non politicians, who may save the day. These are small parties or start-ups, most prominent of which seems to be Dimiourghia Xana ("rebirth", a lofty title if there was one and probably necessary!) that comprises executives, small business owners, professionals and technicians, and as such, has no funding whatsoever, relying on the internet and word of mouth to fuel its campaign. Dimourghia Xana promises to bring (back) "common sense" into Greece's political, administrative, everyday life...

It is to be hoped that they -- or any other similarly inclined party -- win elections some time in the near future of this country because by all accounts it seems that competency and common sense are what are most missing in Greece ruling & political ranks.

Until such time as that happens, it will still take 6-12 months to obtain a license to operate in Greece and, whatever you do and however you do it, some inspection or other can pop over and hand out to you a hefty fine -- promising that "it's OK, things will be straightened out in court". In the meantime, you have to disburse 50% of the fine to bring the matter to court...

Let's hope the Greeks who voted for common sense do not lose hope!

Greek Socialist politician accused of corruption: Nooooo! Really??? A set-up surely!!!

Last week in Greece, a Socialist politician and former minister by the name of Tsochatzopoulos as well as his daughter were incarcerated for alleged fraud, corruption, and a few other bad deeds of similar and dissimilar nature. It is speculated that the remainder of the family will follow.

For anyone concerned, it is rumoured that the two are doing fine under the circumstances, and enjoy preferential treatment. In a recent declaration to media (from jail), Mr Tsochatzopoulos stressed the calamitous nature of the allegations against him. His daughter followed suit.

Dire straits for a man who is among the founders of Greece's socialist Pasok party, and VP of the European socialists.
If the allegations are proven in court, we hope that Mr Tsochatzopoulos is not a standard example of what European socialists have become. If so, Europe is in trouble.
(Coming to think of it, Europe is in trouble...)

Not all is dark and hopeless, however, and there should be hope yet in the horizon for Mr Tsochatzopoulos. A parliamentary internal affairs committee had examined allegations of corruption, apparently leaving no stone unturned, and returned a clean bill of health.

Prominent amongst the committee members signing the exoneration is the current leader of the Greek Socilast party, Mr Tourkoglu / Venizelos and a socialist minister, Mr. Loverdos -- the latter, a man of mind-boggling cretinism. Mr Loverdos single-handedly doubled the unemployment rate in Greece simply by enacting legislation limiting access to employment in Greece (2010) and revolutionised the pharmaceutical distribution network by declaring distribution centres illegal, whereby pharmacies in Greece now are missing just under 30% of the standard sku's!


For those of us planning holidays in Greece and take non-standard medication, it's a good idea to pack a few extra pills to last us the trip.