Wednesday 11 May 2011

Euro Is Starting To Break

Unfortunately I haven't got time to blog about this in depth but the marvelous Richard North has:
... all this will be yours. The summer hasn't even started yet, but the Greeks are on (another) general strike, and the government is even flogging off the tea towels in a bid to avoid default. This is NOT going to succeed, and we are not insulated from it, any more than we are from the growing crisis in Ireland, or the impending disaster in Portugal.
Even the fanatical pro- EU Financial Times is saying that "Greece and Portugal should go gracefully" (page now unavailable).

The Daily Mail reports:
Marinas, casinos and former Olympic venues could be up for grabs after Greece announced a massive fire sale to help service its debt.
Let's not beat around the bush here; Greece is fucked - people's lives and jobs are at stake here. Greece desperately needs to leave the Euro - which is inevitable, the longer this charade goes on the worse it will be. All that prevents this inevitability is the EU political elite 'saving face'.

I hate them, I really do.

8 comments:

  1. I totally agree with your sentiments TBF.

    The usual analogy is a swan - serene on top and paddling furiously below.

    The EU now resembles the putrid body of a dead pigeon floating in a sea of s**t.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lol - an evocative metaphor, BJ.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hate them as well

    ReplyDelete
  4. Britain to lose seat at UNSC to EU today.

    Also yesterday - Danish border closed.

    Both show the desperation of the EU.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Frog,

    Unfortunately it's not that simple.

    Only yesterday, a cousin of a friend of mine complained that she has not yet been granted tenure in her Civil Service job, and that in any case her wage is too low.

    When I asked her why she did not look for a job elsewhere, I expected her to answer that she didn't think she'd be able to find one, which would probably be true.

    Instead she got angry and informed me that "all" she is looking for is a well paid job that won't tire her! I thought she was joking and laughed. I was then subjected to a tirade of insults, and I was informed that we in the private sector have it easy, living off the labour of the civil service!!

    The shocking thing is that she really believes this, and so do the majority of my fellow Greeks who happen to "work" in the public sector.

    Do you know that Civil Servants get a huge amount of yearly tax-free bonuses. I will outline some of the more amusing ones:

    1. The bonus for married people
    2. The bonus for unmarried people
    3. The bonus for carrying an envelope or package from one part of a building to another.
    4. The bonus for getting a job in the Civil Service
    5. The bonus for actually SHOWING UP to your job in the Civil Service.
    6.The bonus for actually SHOWING UP to your job in the Civil Service ON TIME in the morning.
    7. The bonus for going on holiday.
    8. The bonus for not going on holiday.
    9. The bonus for receiving or sending a fax
    10. The bonus for washing your hands (this really exists!! THEY ALL DO!!!).

    Then factor in issues like the following. A major state hospital in the centre of Athens employs 15 gardeners. The hospital has no gardens. Not only that, 12 of the 15 gardeners don't even live in Athens!

    It's easy for us to blame the Europeans and the IMF and Goldman Sachs and so on, but the sad truth is that the public sector will never allow this country to change. Any politician who attempts it will be cast out of power in the emergency elections that will be called. If the next government tries it too, they will also be chucked out. That way lies a coup and dictatorship.

    Meanwhile the private sector are powerless and will remain so. If they dare to complain, they will be murdered like the workers who were burned to death in Marfin Bank while union representatives, hard-left party members and masked anarchists screamed at them "DIE YOU CAPITALIST C*NTS!". Meanwhile Nazis of various flavours used this as an excuse to chase and beat Pakistanis and Nigerians, as obviously THEY were the ones throwing the molotoff cocktails.

    There is no hope for my country and there never will be.

    ReplyDelete
  6. And I forgot to write above that once a Civil Servant is given Tenure, it is AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION to fire him/her, not matter WHAT! Murder, rape, grand fraud, NOTHING is bad enough.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anon, I don't disagree with what you are saying, but the Franco-German Axis's desire for consumerist client states on the periphery of the EU funded Greece's descent into the kind of mentality you described above.

    Siemens bribed your politicians to buy their equipment for hospitals and the civil service.

    The German gov't bribed your politicians to buy their useless submarines.

    The French only signed the EU bailout fund to Greece after your politicians agreed to buy bucketloads of out-dated Dassault fighter jets.

    I lived in Greece for years in the 80s working for a major vehicle manufacturer who assembled cars there. Do you know that before the Maastricht treaty there were 40 small vehicles manufacturers in Greece, all designing and building their own creations, almost all turning a profit? One year after the Treaty, there were 2, making 1960s Mercedes buses under licence.

    So yes, you Greeks have yourselves to blame to a large extent, but not exclusively.

    Lars Baumschlager
    Salzburg
    Austria

    ReplyDelete