Keep Watching Greece Because What's Going on There is Coming to America

John McCain said the United States faces a fiscal situation similar to Greece, Spain and Ireland. “I noted with some interest when Greece and Spain and now Ireland and other countries faced a severe financial meltdown,” he said. “The first thing that had to be cut was entitlements and benefits. What’s the difference between the United States and these countries? We’re just not there yet but we’re headed on that path.” - CNSNews.com, Sen. McCain: ‘Unless We Enact Draconian Measures’, America Faces a ‘Fiscal Meltdown’, April 12, 2011

5 Injured at Port Workers - Riot Police Clashes

April 12, 2011

Keep Talking Greece - No day passes without clashes. OK it sounds funny as it makes a rhyme but the situation is causes concern as the state seems to have no other option than to send the riot police to meet several interest groups. This time it was the workers at the Piraeus port that clashed with the police. Angry men without job attempted to break the police ‘wall’ and reach the building of the Piraeus Port Authority Headquarters.

Workers and police clashed and tear gas was fired to disperse the ‘crowd’ consisting of some 250 men, members of the workers union.

Five protesters were injured and taken to a hospital.

However the injuries and the tear gas did not break the struggle spirit of the protesters who marched through the center of Piraeus. They spoke of unusual violence used by the police.

The port workers demand freeze of lay off and enlargement of the enhancement shipping zone.

The PPA employs more than 1,500 people.

The port of Piraeus, the largest in Greece, is the hub for the connection of the islands with mainland, international cruise center and commercial hub for the Mediterranean, providing services to ships of all types and sizes.

IMF/EU/ECB Guys Deeply Frustrated about Greece’s Public Sector Realities

April 12, 2011

Keep Talking Greece - It seems that slowly Greece’s lenders come more closely to the Greek realities. Apparently the IFM/EU/ECB controllers are deeply frustrated that they wouldn’t hesitate to propose shocking solutions for drastic cuts in public spending.

“The situation is deteriorating instead of improving, tax and customs offices are not able to collect revenues, corruption goes unpunished” say apparently the Troika guys according to a report from Brussels published in the Greek daily TA NEA .

“The situation is deteriorating rather than improving, at least in terms of how services generated revenue such as tax offices and customs. This finding leads them to believe that now is impossible to fill the black hole, which is expected to reach 4.8 to 5.8 billion at the end of the first six months of the year,” claims the newspaper without naming any sources.

The Troika seems stunned to get confronted with the Greek civil servants and the way the state apparatus and the control mechanism approaches the necessity of cuts in public spending.

What did the Troika see in Greece?

- The state does not reimburse the Value Added Tax to the citizens; the collect it and wrongly write it down to the revenues.

- Tax offices rush to collect taxes from some citizens earlier than they should, while they don’t collect taxes at all from others — depending on ‘connections’, bribes not excluded.

- At customs offices the situation is even worse with employees ignoring the EU and even the national regulations.

-Cost saving in the public sector has been limited to wage cuts only while other types of reducing costs are not applied. Troika criticizes the lack of rationalization in the cost-services calculation.

-Overpricing continues to be the rule in every project. Fixing street holes costs fours times more in Greece than in Brussels.

-Corruption is widespread not only in public administration, it’s being continuously growing in the private sector as well.

Greek FinMin’s Plans for Wages Cuts in State-run Enterprises DEKO

April 12, 2011

Keep Talking Greece - New wages and benefits cuts and possible lay offs are on the way as the Greek government prepares a thorough spending reconstruction plan for the state-run public enterprises DEKO. Greece’s lenders IMF/EU/ECB have put the knife in Athens neck and demanded immediate interventions in order to raise at least 2.5-3 billion euros.

The plans foresee cutting of operational costs though a new salary scale for maximum 48,000 euros yearly. Currently the average wage is €40,00 per year in the DEKO, €30,00 in public entities, while wages in the private sector are significant lower. However in some state-run enterprises there are officials earning €4,800 4,000/month, with the average estimated at €3,000.

Overtime and other benefits would be cut as well reaching 10% of the wage cost. The cuts may be retroactive to the beginning of the year.

In some DEKO, employees salaries had a reduction of 7% in March.

The Finance Ministry prepares also a list of public entities that can be abolished or merged, while there are still plans for possible privatization.

EU Council Van Rompuy to Greeks: Unavoidable Reforms for Better Tomorrow?

April 12, 2011

Keep Talking Greece - Oh these EU technocrats, percentage calculators and professional politicians. Especially those from the far away Brussels who take crucial decisions for the fates of the European taxpayers who enable them to live in glass cocoons.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, currently in Athens, urged Greece to continue with unavoidable, ‘painful but necessary’ reforms and said it was vital the Greek people should be happy to make sacrifices for a better tomorrow. As Van Rompuy finances his comfortable from the taxes paid by the Greek jobless, I would expect something better than a chewed candy of ‘a better tomorrow with a miserable today’…

In an interview with the Greek daily Kathimerini newspaper, Van Rompuy said the debate over whether Greece should restructure its debt should not distract the government from making necessary changes.

‘I am aware of the ongoing academic discussion over restructuring public debt, but in the real world there are no magic solutions,’ Van Rompuy said. ‘Greece has only been implementing its programme for 10 months and we have to allow time for the reforms to bring results.’

The current wave of reforms, which aim to overhaul labour market rules and do away with bonuses and overtime pay, are facing strong opposition from unions which have held months of strikes and demonstrations.

Van Rompuy described the reforms as ‘painful but necessary,’ saying that it was vital the Greek people should not feel angry or alienated.

‘If people feel that the burden falls mainly on the shoulders of the usual suspects — families, workers and small businesses — there is a danger of a political backlash.’

‘It is vital that we offer people some hope and that we convince them the sacrifices they are making today are necessary for a better tomorrow.’

Van Rompuy’s visit comes at a crucial time for the government as it is due to present finalized plans of its medium term budget strategy (2012-15) and how the country will raise 50 billion euros from privatisations by 2015 to reduce a large part of its debt.

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