Now you may argue that many of these must have been public sector “non-job” but if it was that or nothing why would someone not take it?
I know quite a few Greeks, albeit none working in the public sector, and they are generally honest, very hardworking, family centred and worried out of their minds about how they are going to care for their families. The imposition of the latest round of taxes has just about finished off many people, particularly the elderly. Hunger is common, normal respectable people are being made homeless, electricity is cut off regardless of the suffering it causes because people don’t have the money to pay the new tax that is collected on the electricity bill. Children don’t go to school as they have no shoes. Private sector employers are paying employees a quarter of what they they are due and people are finding out that their “NI” has not been paid by employers so they fail to qualify for healthcare.
In the meantime the politicians continue to point score off each other and the corruption and nepotism in public life is staggering. Not one of the politicians engaged in many of the recent scandals has been jailed, the infamous list of 1500 of the worst tax evaders has not been published and most schools still haven’t received the books for the current school year.
If anything ordinary people have been guilty of being naive, believing that the boom would continue and it was safe to take out a mortgage or a loan for a car etc and abandoning the culture of extreme fiscal conservatism of their parents (save, buy land, build a family house, never borrow from banks, save some more). But were people in in Britain that much different?
Yes there’s a lot wrong – the closed shops, the marxist unions, the stultifying bureaucracy and complete lack of service culture in the public sector. Punishing the wrong people will not solve this though. People here are in despair – people just like you and me, and they are terribly embarrassed about Greece’s position in Europe and the behaviour of their politicians.
There was a service locally this morning for a man, a suicide, who had not been able to find work and had ran out of options, he could not abide the shame of not being able to provide for his family and snapped. That’s the real price of this financial debacle.
- harri
