Europe?

[vgonis]

And yet another one from Germany, in German and Greek subtitles. Greece is the second biggest buyer of arms after USA! And the biggest seller? You guested right. Germany! As I said before, you have to look at the biggest picture. People are not to blame entirely. The system, we call democracy, is corrupt, and has created defenses that actually protect the offenders-politicians-dictators.  The corrupt governments do all the favors for their big corporations' friends and they, in turn hide behind the people of the countries they reside. They pay taxes and keep everybody happy, but they also spread hatred for the other countries, through the media, theyso carefully chose to own!
 

[vgonis]

Two weeks after the general elections in Greece, and I still wonder why and how Greece with a debt of 350 billion Euros is still the center of everybody's attention and blamed for a global economic downfall. It is outrageous!
But let's take things from the top. 2 weeks ago the elections proved that Greeks just won't take any more lies about the "help" provided from EU and IMF as painful austerity measures, that lead straight to depression and Greece into a third world state. The proof that all they have been deciding and voting all this time was without the consent of the Greek people, was the  fact that the two major political parties of the last 35 years got around 30% of the voters, put together, while the leftist parties got more than 35% and the rest anti - memorandum parties that  got into the parliament gathered another 15%, total 50%, against the severe measures!!! If you count the rest parties that got less than 3% and didn't elect any representatives, you reach a staggering 62%!!!!
But still we hear everybody, mainly from the EU and IMF, saying that we have to elect a government that promises to keep on struggling the Greeks with the austerity measures that the memorandums have been forcing on us. 
Amongst others, the laws that were forced upon us:
1.In less than a year the average salary in the private sector is going to be 400-500 Euros and in the public sector 600-700 Euros, while the prices are still as high as in 2000, when salaries were almost double that. The final plan is to make Greece a cheap labour and tourist destination, with salaries no more than 150-200 Euros. That have been said from official lips! Even in Bulgaria or Romania, that such salaries are common, the state of the people and the public services plus the crime rate are worse than ever! They still prefer Greece, to come and work. 
2.The poverty limit is around 6000 Euros, but the tax limit has become 5000 Euros! If you have kids the taxation is even worse! People are selling their property because they can't stand the taxation, but nobody is buying! They can't afford to buy or to pay the taxes that come with them!
3.They cut down salaries, pensions, medical expenses, education etc, while they have raised the taxes (70 new taxes!, 5 instant taxes with retrospective power!) This means that people will be dieing from cold since there are more and more homeless each day. Every day more than 1000 people lose their job and they even have lowered the unemployment benefit. Hey, they are so clever that they tax it, after they've given it! 450 Euros with 15 years of work and two kids, for a year, and then zip! And they have the nerve to tax it!

During this period, they have passed other laws, that have gone under the radar, since when you are on the look out for your daily meal you pay no attention for anything else.
1.Greek parliament has passed a law that forces every Greek to give away his organs if he is pronounced brain dead! Any doctor would take your organs with no need of any consent, if you are considered brain dead! That is Free will, in the land of democracy!
2.While all statistics point that the life expectancy is not going to be more than 72, and lowering every year, they have raised the working years to 40, with an age limit of 67! I work since I was 17, so it will be 50 years for me, and with no hope for a pension or proper health insurance, although I have been paying more than most of the Europeans for these benefits! (39% of my salary, before taxes!) 
3.They close hospitals, make us pay for the doctors and medicine that we already have been paying through our salary (the 37%)

The problem is that they have been fooling us for some time but they can not fool us all of the time, and this slow death of the economy and the people is the final straw. They blackmail us that we will suffer outside the Euro, but the alternative is to suffer inside the Euro without hope of recovery.

How would you feel if you were told what to do by the people that took destructive decisions for you ?
 
 

[vgonis]

This is a very short, simple  and interesting video about the creation of world debt. It is 10 minutes long. Give it a try!

[vgonis]

This is a very interesting documentary called Catastroica about the Greek situation. It has flashbacks about similar situations of the past (UK, Russia, Chile, Germany etc)

with English subtitles


spanish subtitles

Italian subtitles


Watch it, you may not agree but there is truth in it and it is certainly food for thought. It is happening and not only in Greece

[vgonis]

I have stopped watching the news on TV and I rarely listen to some of them on the radio. They are like propaganda in my ears, a scary one. I only read a Sunday newspaper. Lat Sunday, I saw that the public opinion of many politicians, including Mercel has changed considerably, after her meeting with the Chinese Prime minister. It is odd at least. Anyway, the fact that news are not plenty, not because everything is quite, but because it is the same old bleak ones over and over again, doesn't mean that the public feels the same. All this weight has fallen on its shoulders and every passing day it is heavier. The breaking point is not that very far, and I wonder...

[Pottel]

I am a bit worried about the right wing forces in Greece at the moment. A bit like in Antwerp Belgium some 10 years ago, but then in a complete country....

[vgonis]

We are worried too. Mostly because they have gathered power from the ordinary Joe, who is ready to break some heads without thinking. But if you consider what is going on here and what we've been going through the last 3 years it is not hard to understand that these are common "cause and result" cases. The crime rate has gone through the roof, but still within Europe's average, so they don't pay attention. They pay young policemen with 600Euros and they expect to do their dangerous work as usual. And so it goes for every civil servant Teachers have to accept a first paycheck of 580 Euros and like the policemen are forced away from their parent's home, so they have to pay another set of rent, food, and bills. And the money they get are not tax free! In the end of the year they are asked to pay 10% back. If you do the math it is 6500 a year for a policeman!!! This is slaughter. They will not accept children as a tax relief reason, so families with kids are punished with extra tax! They raise the fuel (oil and natural gas) at car fuel prices, in order to stop tax evasion! They are paranoid. And these are few of the new laws that they are passing in order to convince the EU that we are good kids and that we are ready to die, just as long as we have a place in the Euro but not in the sun. Immigrants don't want to stay in Greece but they can't go back or move forward to any other European country. All public services are in the brink of melt down and on top of that they ask for 15000 lay offs, effective immediately. They don't care what happens, they only add numbers and if the actual results are not  as expected, they blame it on the government that won't move quickly or do the whole rearrangement. They just won't admit that it is too much too late, a wrong plan and other interests in stake. They sold one of the richest gold mines in the world for peanuts, They sold the use of the biggest port in Greece and costs of customs have gone up 70%. They have tried to sell the power and water companies that are Profitable! They sold the telephone company to Deutche Telecoms for the silly sum of 600 millions, close to what the company made in a year!!! See and read what happened with True Hands after the fall of the Berlin wall. It happens here but it is worse. Watch the documentary I mention a few posts back. You will see the other side.   

[Pottel]

What is with the formula 1 track that is supposedly going to be built for 100 million? True or EU propaganda?

[vgonis]

I think that they were thinking about it for ages, but the Constantinople one was built so it is just hearsay. Do you have some specific article to see?

[Pottel]

Belgien and German newspaper article.

[vgonis]

Yes, now I see some recent articles in Greek.(a month ago) But it is the old plan resurfacing, from other people. I don't know what the German and Belgian articles write, but it looks like they want to build it near the port or at the old airport, by the sea. All private funding, and will give 5000 permanent jobs plus 3000 temporary. Apart from the fact that they will use public property that was supposed to become a park that Athens really needs, the work it will provide is a rather good think. Especially if it is made in Keratsini/Drapetsona that are really very poor neighborhoods. But as I have said it is the same old plan that I hear for the last 20 years. And no other clues. Maybe I am missing info that the journalists think common knowledge.

[vgonis]

The IMF, forces the Greek government to cut all tax exemptions from Euro one. This means that regardless if 65% of the people live under poverty standards (less than 5000 Euros / year) . So if you work in a company and make 5001 Euros you are taxed with 10%. If you work on your own you are taxed 35% from Euro 1. And the same goes even if you have wife and kids, it doesn't matter that you need more money to feed them. They also evaluate your other assets (house, land etc.) and tax you heavily, even if you don't make any money out of them. People are about to lose their houses because they have no money to pay the taxes for them. Profitable public companies like the Power and Water company are targeted by the IMF, that asks for their sale, while the profit margin is good and at the same time the government can control prices for the benefit of the weakest. At the same time they are forcing the government to lower the taxes on big business, as they claim, in an effort to attract business in Greece. But when they accepted China and India in the World Commerce Organization, it was plain to see that workers with 1$ salary/day, will bring down the world economy, since no country in the world can adjust or compete. "Live with what they make" (yes they are their main catch-phrase in Greece as well) is a load of rubbish, because when the biggest part of population lives in cities, it has to pay for everything, especially for food and rent. Now all these new laws have brought such recession in Greece (-7% growth for the last 3 years) that is worst even after WWII. Such recession creates a vicious cycle that eventually brings countries to bankruptcy, real or virtual , as we live it. Over 1,5 millions unemployed and they would be more but many have already left the country. I have come to the conclusion that all politicians lie (-you remember the joke-"How do you know a politician lies? His lips are moving. ) and they serve interests other than the good of their people. Most of the times they do it because they are taught this theories in famous universities, theories that don't work, but a nation has to be the guinea pig to realize that.The rest of the times it happens because they mix what is good for the country with what is good for them. Don't let it happen to you as well or allow it to happen to any other nation in the world.

[Pottel]

Sad.....

[vgonis]

... and painfully true.

[vgonis]

Some time ago during Easter in April 2012, I went for a visit at my mother's hometown some 140km outside Athens. It is really a blessed place, a micrography of Greek landscape,  combining the beauty of the sea, mountains and farmland. It produces olives, olive oil, wine, tobacco, grapes, almonds, lamb meat, peanuts, fish and many other things in smaller scale like herbs, cotton, wheat, corn and honey. All people there have a piece of land, small or big, depending on the heritage of their ancestors or the wise decision to buy farms from people leaving for the big cities. They also have a decent house  and a neighborhood feeling that is long gone from the cities. What they obviously lack is a proper education. That wouldn't be a problem, since Greeks are kind hearted, friendly and hospitable people, that usually make up for most of the luck of education. Unfortunately the only thing that can be substituted is the knowledge of what is good for them. And that is why they were fooled by the politicians for centuries and up to the last two elections. Because the ones that voted yet again in May and June 2012, for the two political parties that had formed the coalition since November 2011, were mainly them!!! They were lied upon, they were ripped with new heavy taxation, they received no promises for a better future, but still they went ahead and voted mainly for PASOK (the "socialist" party), the political party that have been ruining the country (together with the right party New Democracy) since 1974!
I tried to discuss with many of my relatives and friends the situation and actually understand why they vote for these parties and maybe convince them to vote for smaller parties that maybe were closer to them. I knew that they were voting for them and I didn't try to confront them straight ahead, so that I would not insult them for their previous choices. After all I thought that the new taxes and economical burdens would have brought them to their knees.
But alas! I was surprised to hear, more or less, the same reply:" You are right, by all means, and looks like you have studied the whole matter, but I am still voting for them, because they are the ones we know"  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You don't have anything to answer to that! It is peculiar yet true. It is human nature. Trouble is that their vote affects my life as well! And it has nothing to do with ideologies, it is just simple logic.

Now back to Athens. I had the chance to meet with many people during the summer, that open up with their opinion. I was stunned! So many people worring about what to vote, because no political party could express them , like myself. And on the other hand so many people daring to say that they will vote for the extremist right wing party. The so called radical left party got many votes (up from 8% and 4th placement  to 27% and 2nd !!!!!), but it was mainly protest vote, not ideological attachment at all. Many people I know, voted for New Democracy, without believing in it, but because they have certain problems (health, pensioners etc) that would lose their lives if the system collapsed without a government that IMF and the EU liked and supported.  Of course it is plain to see that the politicians lied once again and the EU and IMF cares only to profit from it and not help.
 What worries me most, is that since 1996 voting has ceased to be compulsory. It means that every lost vote comes from a person that can not find a fit representation. Now if only the 60-70% of the voters go to vote and from them only a 29% elects the first party (that together with the 3rd and 6th have joined forces, and formed the recent government) with a percentage more or less 48% but 167 out of 300 parliament members, you can see what kind of democracy we have. The 50% of the 70% is 35%. So we have the rest 65% disagreeing but unable to be expressed.   
I believe that this happens to most countries of the world, but people either suffer quietly, because they don't know better, or live in countries with stronger economies or ways to get by, so they don't feel the wave that is coming after Greece, Spain, Portugal.
I have written before that this is a war with other means. Just think what will happen if tomorrow you are left without a job. How long can you sustain?