Willothewisp

The screaming headline on the front page of Germany’s big newspaper Bild seemed to say it all “The Greeks want even more billions from us! – 25,000,000,000 Euro !” it shouted out in huge type face.

The paper was positively apoplectic in response to alarming estimates which confirm that if Germany (and most of the EU Euro Zone) is to bail out Athens, it will have to put three times the amount of money on the table than the sum that was being discussed only days ago, and that is just for one year. A German friend summed up the German view;

“Suddenly our politicians have got billions of euros for Greece. It is a country that has been living beyond its means for decades. It has lied and cheated as a nation to get the Euro. Then it lied to hell and back to the rest of Europe.Their politicians and civil government (there is a joke in itself!) are no better than common fraudsters, and the Greek people have been their accomplices”.

• Greece’s 180,000 teachers would give it one of the world’s best teacher-student ratios but about 20,000 teachers are in administration because there are no classrooms for them.
• One small state school on a tiny island was found to have 15 physical-education teachers, while another had more teachers than students.
• A senior government official says some tax offices operate a “4-4-2 system,” a reference to soccer tactics. If an individual or company owes €10,000 in taxes, they slip €4,000 to the inspector, keep €4,000, and pay €2,000 to the state.
• In the month before last autumn’s election, the government added 27,000 people – friends of the party – to the public payroll. Many had no position to fill, and not even an office to go to.
• The health-care system is a hotbed of corrupt procurement. Many hospitals do not use proper accounting, making it hard to supervise purchases. As a result, public hospitals ran up billions of euros in suppliers’ bills they cannot pay. The previous government understated those liabilities by more than € 5 billion when it gave European authorities an overly optimistic budget forecast last fall. Think about that figure for a moment,  € 5 billion !
• Government employees can get paid 13 to 15 months salary a year.
• Parliament employees and Members of Parliament have beem receiving, in addition to the 13th and 14th salaries, a 15th and a 16th, tax-exempt salary, upon opening and closing of Parliament!
• Government employees can get a “long service bonus”
• Government employees can get a bonus for turning up to work regularly
• Government employees can get a “special holiday bonus”
• Government spending accounted for 50 percent of GDP (USA is 35%).
• Only 450,000 citizens (4% of the population) pay direct taxes, while the rest evade illegally.
• Further, only 37,000 homeowners (0.34%) pay property taxes.
• The bailout is predicted to bring down Greece’s deficit-to-GDP ratio from 8.1 percent to 2.6 percent by 2014, putting it under the Euro zone’s recommendation. But the bailout will do nothing for the debt-to-GDP ratio — except raise it, from 133 percent this year to 144 percent in 2014.
• Under the bailout, Greeks government empoyees must now work until they are 67 years old. Up until now, they have been able to retire with pensions at 53 complete with bonuses!

Bribery & Corruption

In Greece two words sum the country up:fakelaki and rousfeti.

Fakelaki means “little envelopes,” the bribes that affect everyone, police, doctors, patients, business people, everyone. Rousfeti means expensive political favors, which pervade everything. If you are a teacher and want a job, if you want to rebuild your house, get electricity connected, you name it. Together, these traditions of corruption and cronyism have produced a state that is simultaneously bloated and malnourished.

Bribery, patronage and other public corruption are major contributors to the country’s ballooning debt, depriving the Greek state each year of the equivalent of at least 8% of its gross domestic product (GDP), or more than €20 billion ($27 billion) according to the Brookings Institution. Even Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou said after he took office late last year, vowing to change a mentality that views the state as a resource to plunder. He later berated the chief of public prosecutions, saying Greeks believe “there is impunity in this country.” but in true Greek fashion the chief prosecutor continued in his delusional state and said that wasn’t so. 13.5% of Greek households paid a bribe, €1,355 on average, according to a Transparency survey published last month. Ordinary citizens hand out cash-filled envelopes to get driver’s licenses, doctor’s appointments and building permits, or to reduce their tax bills.

Incompetent & Corrupt Government

In 2007, the government was found to have sold billions of euros in overpriced, complex securities to public pension funds, resulting in large losses at the funds. Shortfalls have to be covered by the government, worsening the budget deficit. Following a public outcry, a state commission on money laundering probed some of the transactions, concluding that there were “clear indications” of bribery, tax evasion and other wrongdoing by Greek officials.Cases of corruption in public procurement are rarely resolved, thanks to a slow-moving justice system that deters people who have paid bribes from becoming witnesses. Politicians have escaped corruption charges because probes often are held up in parliament until a statute of limitations expires. The public prosecutors’ office, dismissed the findings because the report was signed only by the head of the money-laundering commission, not by every member. The head of the commission was fired, basically for telling the truth and being honest !

The national sport is bribery of tax officials allows individuals and companies to bribe inspectors and evade taxes so there is a dearth of income into the state. Couple this with truly massive overstaffing in public administration, the result of decades of both major political parties creating unnecessary posts for their supporters, saddles the state with a high wage bill.

In short Greece is a nation steeped in state malfeasance populated by amoral fraudsters and theives, one in which every single citizen must bare their share of responsibility, protesting the measures now needed to correct their collective mess just shows how immoral they are in that they cannot recognise their own guilt. The international banks undoubtedly have a measure of guilt but it pales in comparison to that of the entire Greek nation.

But we should not think that Greece alone is to blame. The political class of the EU are equally responsible, driving as they have the continued hurried growth of the EU in the face of common sense, and probity.Not only is Greece a complete basket case it is one that should never have been allowed admittance to the EU, and now it should be thrown out in disgrace. It should also show the rest of the EU the idiocy of unfetted expansion. Sadly the EU political elite will now close ranks and pressure the media into the deflection of their own guilt.

It is Germany and France who really stand to loose out if Greece goes under because French and German banks have been the prime buyers of Greek Government bonds and the biggest lenders. This of course raises the question of the banks competence. Deutsche Bank, Hypo Real Estate, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, and Societe Generale all have a great deal of explaining to do about how their “due diligence” failed to spot Greece’s financial black hole for so long.

Once again the so called “financial experts” have been shown for what they are, a bunch of monkeys with a gigantic bunch of over ripe bananas !