The Greeks

Well I am the self appointed expert in Hellenic affairs within Unison. The thousands of you who don't read this blog have asked me to comment on the state of the Greek economy. I could do the typical Hellenic thing and blame everyone else for the state of the economy but there are two versions regarding the reasons and both are as equally apealing>

First of all the Greeks don't like tax (does anyone?) and since there is no PAYE system in place the state relies on tax returns which are filled in every year. That in itself is still a chaotic process. The estimate is that around 38% of GDP is lost through uncollected revenue. There is also the problem of spending a considerable amount of the budget on 'defence' this is of course based on the 'perceived'' threat from neighbours which (in my opinion) is greatly exaturated and has been used over the last 50 years to justify high spending on buying arms from the USA (responsible mainly for many of Hellas post war problems) and France. So the reality is that a lot of other areas are neglected such as welfare. Spending on education is good but more can be done.

The other version of what has gone wrong is associated with the 'fact' that the Germans took the gold bullion reserves when they invaded the country in 1941 and never returned it. The current Minister of the Interior, Theodoros Pangalos, has gone on record saying that if that was returned then there would be no economic crisis. My question is why did thye wait until now to remember that?? I personally blame the last Tory administration of Costas Karamalis. The solution is of course for a radical re think of how capitalist Europe operates and its about time that some true socialist methods were introduced! But no one can blame the Greek people for the mess the capitalist keep creating. I understand that Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Italy are following the same path. This is a crisis created by an idiotic system that needs radical re think!