Dedicated to the Greek Non-Striking Worker: Here's to the Heroes - Mario Frangoulis

The bright side of the extensive strikes in Athens in the last few days...
a lovely morning walk along Vasilissis Sofias Avenue with hundreds of others...
the real heroes - trying to get to work.


Mario's beautiful song is dedicated to all those who had to get to work over the last few days in an Athens that was deprived of public transport - Buses, Trains, Metro, Taxis by the striking Public Sector employees ahead of the voting tonight by the Greek Parliament of the latest round of unending austerity measures, imposed by politicians and the Troikan bureaucrats who can't, or rather don't want to, see past their highly paid nose.

Let's hope it will be a peaceful day today.

Here's to the Heroes...

At Global Greek World, We ♥ Greece...and it shows! 

© GlobalGreekWorld 2012 All Rights Reserved

Fact or Fiction? Greece's Troika and the Suggestion to Depopulate Islands

 Greece's IMF/EU/ECB Troika have done it again...

Theatre of the absurd, crass stupidity or downright criminal?

The Troika, those unimaginative, number-crunchers in grey suits strike again! After suggesting a 6 day working week for Greek workers, after suggesting the taxpayer fund the 550 million odd euros owed by the banks, they have now turned their attention to the islands...

Some people are saying that as it wasn't 'official' it shouldn't be relayed because it was made by a 'lowly placed' official. We disagree. Quite the contrary in fact... it is very useful to know the quality of the people that make up the advisors behind the IMF/EU/ECB Troika...

The unbelievable suggestion that the last remaining, and indisputably heroic, residents of strategically placed Greek islands be evacuated if less than 150 to save funds is totally and unequivocally insane. It just happens that some of the islands who have less than 150 inhabitants are islands like Gavdos and Farmakonissi which our loving neighbour, Turkey, loves to covet and therefore dispute as to their Greek sovereignty... what a gift to Turkey that would be!

Greek government denials have been issued but we don't buy them...they are just for damage control because the reaction was so instant and intense.

 Gavdos Island

Maybe the 'lowly placed' Troika official who had the gall to make this suggestion hadn't read Greek history, had no idea of the population exchanges with Turkey and the deportations that Greeks everywhere have been subjected to through the ages. He or she obviously hadn't heard of measures designed to aid development either.

Instead of encouraging depopulation to save funds and listening to the public outcry, just imagine the accolade this 'lowly placed' Troika official would have received if he/she had suggested development of the sparsely populated islands by giving incentives for people to move there. That would mean putting infrastructure in place, building schools, providing medical services, transport and communication means that are essential to survival.

This would in turn encourage the people who left their island and are now living in highly populated urban centres and perhaps suffering from the high levels of unemployment to return with their families and put their ideas into practice, thus creating employment opportunities and in turn helping the economy recover.

Create, create, create should be the name of the game.

A friend of ours recently put this into practice on the island of Kastos. As there was no grocery store on this beautiful island, one of the ones the Troika is referring to, and everything had to be brought by kaiki from Mytika, the closest port, he decided to invest his funds, build a store and at the same time build a house to live in with his family.

The results for our friend in Kastos were positive for all - the islanders have a shop, the builders had employment, the kaiki still runs to take groceries, and the investor keeps busy, gives employment, pays taxes and above all sees his island develop.

So far so good... unless the Troika strikes!

 Kastos Island

 Photo Source: euratlas

The very fact that someone who has no idea about Greece and what Greece is all about can make such an insane suggestion means he or she should not be in that post, and let's remember what that post is.

The Troika is supposedly here, not just to make sure that the lenders get their money back, but to make sure that they get the Greek economy back on a healthy footing by stimulating production and investment. This is the aspect of the mission which is called 'helping' Greece,  advising the government of reforms to be implemented to help the country move forward.

These major structural reforms are essential in Greece, but the kind of things we are hearing as coming from the Troika, even if taken with the proverbial grain of salt and with provision made for hearing things exaggerated and second-hand, are enough to make our collective hair stand on end.

How about if these whizz-kids turn their attention to something easy... like helping Greece's economic wizards keep Greek companies in Greece instead of forcing them into 'exile' because of the continually changing and non corporate friendly taxation system. If we can't keep our own investors how on earth are we going to attract foreign ones?

A Global Greek friend visiting this morning reminded us of a Chinese proverb which goes something like this  

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime...

Somebody should remind the Troika of that too, unless our friends have something else  in mind...

The future will tell...

Patience compatriots, any moment now we'll be moving 

to our new country, 

with sun, beaches and warm seas...

we're just finalising the contract

Bitter humour from Cartoonist Yannis Ioannou

 14 February 2011
 Ironically enough on Valentine's Day ...

Perhaps if German Chancellor Angela Merkel had bothered to visit Greece early on in the crisis to show her support for a fellow EU member in crisis, instead of just last week, almost 3 years after it all began, the unacceptable labelling of all Greeks as tax dodgers, lazy and corrupt would have been avoided as would all the bad feeling that transpired between the two countries since the economic crisis in Europe began...

At Global Greek World, We ♥ Greece...and it shows! 

© GlobalGreekWorld 2009 - 2015 All Rights Reserved

YES, Greece CAN...Despite The Memoranda!

 

For all those who would like to see what exactly the two Memoranda between Greece and the Troika of her creditors - the EU, the ECB and the IMF, say, see below for the measures involved for the already much beleaguered people of Greece....

The people of Greece who are being called upon to make major sacrifices and suffer for the next few years, because, tragically, her political leaders failed to build a properly functioning state over the last 40 years that would also safeguard its citizens against the whims and voracious appetites of the world's vultures...

Greece needs to get its own house in order and make structural reforms, for its own sake, but the Troika's recipe isn't necessarily the right way to go. There are many voices, in Greece and around the world arguing against an imposed austerity seemingly without justice, incentives and hope for  future growth. An austerity designed primarily to ensure payback to banks and institutions who have made killings all these years. These protests are falling on deaf ears, however, as the grey-suited bureaucrats making decisions conveniently forget that there are real people suffering behind the numbers they see in front of them and the resultant brain drain, as the young and the talented leave Greece to pursue lives and careers elsewhere, is the last thing that Greece needs right now.

Whatever happens though, Greece is a nation that has survived much worse over the course of her long history, and although we are confident that it will survive this challenge too, wherever we are in the world, we need to be united and strong; we need to show our love for our homeland; we need to realise that Greece needs us ALL, and especially our support.

The support that we gave our homeland so generously and open-handedly whenever she was on top - in sport or culture, during the glorious Year of Greece in 2004, for example - is much more crucial now when her people are struggling.

We need to be there for the land we know and love.

We need to support the Greek people materially and financially - to help look after the weak who are fighting for their families, who have lost their income and homes and who have no alternative -  but we especially need to support the Greek people's efforts, by giving them as much moral support and encouragement as we can. Our back up, encouragement and support will be critical  in the difficult days ahead, to help our people remain strong, to stay the course and to hold their heads up high.

Source: Billy Candiloros - thanks!

We should never let anyone or anything make us ashamed to be Greek let alone the incompetent politicians and greedy, self-seeking individuals who have brought Greece to the state she is in today.

We need to bring out the best in our people all over the world, so that we can all look forward to a better and brighter future for our homeland - the country we love - Greece.

We need to stand behind the people of Greece so that they can REBUILD, REPOWER, REINVENT, RESTART...

UNITED we Greeks have shown that we can create magic - Greek magic- and we will   again!

YES, Greece, CAN!

Greece—Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy Conditionality, 9 Feb 2012
 Greece—Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies, 9 Feb 2012 

Dedicated To the Troika: From Greece with .... Humour, Black Humour

 From the pen of the wonderful Kostas Mitropoulos 
in Greek daily newspaper,Ta Nea 

Humour with a bite

Troika IMF etc, in the helicopter up above:  Decide Mr Mitso         

Mr Mitso ( the ordinary Greek Citizen, barefoot, caught between a bush of prickly cactuses labelled Staying in the Euro and a cliff precipice labelled Return to the Drachma):  

I would like an advance for some shoes, even if they are jandals

Today is an important day for Greece and only the future will tell us whether it is a positive or a negative one in the recent history of Greece, so we decided to mark it with humour... albeit black!

...and because the Troikans seem to be obsessed with the 13th and 14th Salaries in the private sector, not sure why, and Greece's political leaders are rejoicing that they have succeeded in saving these, despite the fact that, tragically, their concessions meant a lot more purchasing power was lost for the people of Greece and especially the lower income and pension earners,  we thought we would add this special tribute from our friends at Radio Arvyla...

We saved the 13th&14th Salary... Glory to us

P.S.  Dear Troika, Don't forget to have it translated...otherwise it will be all Greek to you!