Greek crisis: crisis of democracy

Dear Ms. Megaloudi, Feel free to persist with your sophistry but In Greek we have a saying : “knowing half the truth is more dangerous than knowing nothing at all”. The Loan Agreement, otherwise known as the Memorandum is not an austerity program. It entails 63 provisions, most of which relate to implementing growth enhancing structural reform such as opening up monopoly activities and closed professions to competition, revamping tax policy, modernizing the antiquated public administration system, modernizing the inefficient health care system, financial sector regulation, land registry, deregulating transport infrastructure, unbundling network activities, renewable energy implementation, reforming the inept judicial system, cutting down pharmaceutical costs. Have a read; it is in the public domain. These reforms are what economically thriving countries like Australia implemented of their own free volition, in stages, starting two decades ago. It is not rocket science, or reinventing the wheel. The issue for Greece is that none of these structural reforms have been implemented because of fierce resistance from interest groups, large sectors of the population that opposed reform of any type because it would disrupt their parasitic lifestyles. If you live in Greece, as I do, you would know this, it is in your face every day. Unless ofcourse you are blind because of dogma or ideology which I would suggest is the case. A part of the Memorandum does indeed include austerity or frugality measures. This is what Thomsen of the IMF is referring to in your selective quote. As the first commentator below quite rightly stated “Austerity, many economists agree, as I do, is not the only medicine for Greece, growth is essential”. Indeed, but real economic growth cannot come about unless the structural reforms, modernizing the economy, are implemented. And these cannot be implemented whilst irresponsible populists (including politicians and journalists, whether simply naïve or in the service of particular interest groups) whip up a frenzy of sensationalist reaction from people who know little better but who are caught in the economic death spiral brought on by stagnancy, lack of transparency, corruption and obsolescent administration which strangely you fail to mention at all. Please refer to recent studies concerning corruption in Greece and its affect on the economy, published by Transparency International and the OECD. Your failure to take objective data into account, when writing about the Greek economy, and the reasons for its dysfunctionality is startling, to say the least. You state that “The 1.2 million unemployed come mainly from the private sector”. No, they do not come mainly from the private sector; they come ENTIRELY from the private sector. Public servants in Greece have permanency of tenure, are never assessed for performance, and cannot be fired for any reason at all, including theft. Then you state that there “are about 150.000 pending layoffs in the public sector without any alternative solution”. What “alternative solution” do private sector employees have? This is indeed false reporting. The Memorandum calls for a reduction in public sector employees by the end of 2014, by 150.000 persons, mostly to be achieved through retirements and a redundancy program with benefits, including 70% of their salary for two years, similar to which many countries have implemented including Australia. You quite conveniently completely overlook the fact that Greece’s dramatic public debt problem was brought on by decades of overspending in the public sector to create virtual jobs, of no substance, through a system of political cronyism that a large sector of the population engaged in. The economic downturn in “production of 8%” that you mention is the result of the strangulation of the private sector by the public sector protégé political establishment which has focused on keeping its electoral base as intact as possible, at the expense of reform. Are you aware that the state owes hundreds of millions, possibly billions to the private sector in the way of fees and unreturned VAT payments? Are you oblivious to the fact that this is why private enterprises are shutting down? Do you not know that only the private sector can produce wealth and create real jobs in any economy, if left uninhibited by a interventionist meta-soviet style state such as in Greece? Had the huge fettered corrupt and inefficient Greek public sector be downsized two years ago and structural reforms implemented in a timely way, the economy would not still be in a death spiral but re-bounding with growth where the real jobs are, in a robust private sector. These are basic common sense principles. If you were at all familiar with what took place in the state of Victoria, Australia, in the 90’s, or what has indeed occurred elsewhere in the world you would be aware of this. You talk about cutbacks to the country’s education system, completely ignoring that Greece’s teacher to student ratio is the highest in Europe, twice that of Finland, which has arguably the best education system in the world according to many global indicators, measured in results. Your understanding of the subjects that you touch on is completely superficial. Moreover you make no mention at all that Greece has a huge primary deficit of 4 billion euro annually. This means that the country does not make enough money to sustain its current level of expenditure. The international financial markets will no longer lend money to Greece, only the EU/ECB/IMF will by virtue of the fact that Greece is in the Eurozone and in the EU. The loan, lifeblood of Greece, underwritten by these lenders is provided at an interest rate of 2.8%, whilst Spain and Italy, both lenders of money to Greece, through the Memorandum are forced to borrow at 6% themselves on the international market place. Why on earth should European taxpayers and even the people of Brazil (who are called on to share greater burdens through their contributions to the IMF) continue to provide unlimited funds to Greece which is living beyond its means and whilst it steadfastly refuses to implement structural reforms? Finally, because there is just too much misinformation in your article and subsequent response to my comment, your claim that there have been “attempted murders of journalists and citizens” by police and then proffer cases of “police brutality” during mass demonstrations as proof of this. Highly emotive, highly subjective and highly sensationalist, as is your entire article.