Reasons & Solutions

[Catillina]

I red some reasons for the general difficult situation in Greece in "Der Spiegel"("The Mirror", a german journal)
They are taking a right-winged position, and give some reasons for the crisis. [Note: Germany isnt happy about the fact that they have to give money to an other EU country]
-The State is paying their employees too highly
-There are too much State-employees
-They aren't realy working
-Fiscal Evasion
-Corruption
-There aren't any realy resources of money, and the State is spending too much relativ too their income

How far are these argumetns true?

Furthermore they are saying that the bigger part of the demonstrants doesnt have any reason too demonstrate.
"Der Spiegel" is taking the example of railway employees.

-Kioutsoukis: He is earning 2000€ netto/month
he has a family, wife, 2 children, and he is saying that with 30%less income, he cant bear it anymore

-The hole Railway is earning an average of 3300€ netto/month (all over average is 738€)

-locomotive driver: earning 7000€ month(netto)

In how far is this true, that they are demonstrating without any reason? I think its defamation, Der Spiegel is only taking the part that suits them...

Now a thought of me to solve the problem: Renationalisation of the debt.

Japan, who has a debt of 200 points of their BIP(Greece 113%, 130 for 2010), who is absent from the recent crisises, because they didnt borrow from other states, but from their own population(debt obligation).

Why dont do the same?

[¿Que?]

This is a great post. I was going to ask some similar questions. Here in the U.S. the general consensus is that the Greek government was "bloated" and not very "productive." I read that about 1/3 of Greek workers were employed by the government and were guaranteed employment for life.

Some people talk of cronyism and corruption, but very generally and not very specifically. I've also heard talk of a financial "bubble," but again, noone wants to get into the specifics.

Hope someone responds with good information. I'm interested in these questions as well.

[FSL]

The State is paying their employees too highly


The state is normally paying decent wages to most of its employess. A highschool teacher will be earning 1000-1500 euros per month, a surgeon in state hospital not much more than 200o euros, a university proffessor less than 3000 euros.

Most of the employess get teacher-like wages and in the past few years it is preferred to not hire people but make "short-term contracts" with them, that usually award no more than 800 euros per month.

State wages are higher compared to the wages people get in the private sector, which in many cases amount to slavery basically (300 euros per month if you can only get a part-time job for example). But that's probably what Spiegel thinks is appropriate for workers.

This disparity is alleviated by the fact that some of the state companies have trade unions that act in a very conservative "trade-unionist" manner. People at the electricity company (DEH) or the railways can get quite high wages. These unions are Pasok dominated, for quite a while only hardcore party supporters could get in there.

But these are hardly the sourse of unrest. The union at DEH had gone on an indefinite strike when the conservative party was in charge but has been silent now.



There are too much State-employees


There are about 2/3rds of the firefighters we'd need to effectively counter wildfires. There are more than 10000 empty positions in hospitals that should be filled with nursing stuff. But at the same time there are probably more employess than the ones needed in other parts -mainly in what is strictly the bureaucracy- who again were hired due to their political affiliation and after a decent amount of begging.

All in all, I don't see the state sector being "bloated". And in the cases were unnecessary hirings took place, this was a conscious choise by the ones in charge.
Greece had a civil war (or a communist revolution depending on how you look at it) in 1946-49 and a dictatorship in 1967-74. Pasok at first promised socialism, solidarity to the palestinian struggle and so on. At the same time, a soviet-friendly communist party remained active and strong. The bourgeoisie couldn't just support some Thatcher-like figure and hope for the best. So Greece kinda fell behind on the "reforms" others were doing. Achieving employment in the state sector became a "hope" for many people and it was preferred to having them do something more radical.



They aren't realy working



The vast majority is. That is not the problem.



Fiscal Evasion


I'm not sure I get that. You mean a loose fiscal policy?

Pensions used to increase by something like 3.5% anually. Most of the time that only barely covered inflation. But that is now considered a luxury, so for the past years there have been no increases and this year we're having a reduction.

If there was something we could have avoided that would be lowering tax rates on companies or paying for the massive Olympic Games just a few years ago. But this money all went to capitalists so no problem here.

In case you mean tax evasion that is also true up to an extent. Especially among independent professionals or small owners. The economy here is backwards compared to the one in the US for example in the sense that concentration of capital is less advanced.

So we do have some large private clinics but at the same time we have many doctors who have their own office and accept people there. We do have some malls but we also have many small shop owners selling clothes and the like.
Tax evasion for them was basically an indirect way of subsidising them. Again, as previously, this was a choise, not the work of some criminal masterminds who kept finding ways to fool the state. There was a need to keep a large number of people "safe from capitalism" to provide a base of support for it. Since the early 90s market forces have been less willing to make these concessions and this is its result.

As for workers, they have no way to evade taxes, they even prepay them.


Corruption

This is the favourite scapegoat of politicians and of the media. That what happens now is basically the result of some lying thieves and that all we need to do is sent one or two to prison.
Of course, they don't suggest that after doing that salaries would rise, they just hope it would keep people happy.

I don't see how corruption here is more rampant than elsewhere. And if it is, that certainly doesn't explain how all the structural reforms we're asked to do have already been done in most of Europe and are part of all the EU directives.



There aren't any realy resources of money, and the State is spending too much relativ too their income


There are goods produced by workers worth about 250 billion euros. The state is spending too much to support the banks or subsidy businesses. They are now spending 4 billion euros in partly paying the salary for the younger people that manage to get a job.
So effectively, they are increasing indirect taxes (that put most of the burden on workers) to help capitalists pay wages. The aim is simply to make labor power cheaper and increase profits.
I don't see how workers are to blame for that.

[Catillina]

With Fiscal Evasion I mean, not paying their taxes, or only a part of it.

Beside nice post.

[vyborg]

All the discussion about the lazy greek workers are just crap. read this http://www.marxist.com/myth-of-lazy-greek-workers.htm

the reality is that Ireland or UK in terms of total debt (private and public) are in a much more worse situation than Greece. but the financial big guns are from UK or US so they shoot on greece.

[bailey_187]

All the discussion about the lazy greek workers are just crap. read this http://www.marxist.com/myth-of-lazy-greek-workers.htm

the reality is that Ireland or UK in terms of total debt (private and public) are in a much more worse situation than Greece. but the financial big guns are from UK or US so they shoot on greece.


"Again, according to Eurostat, Greece also has the most underpaid private sector employees compared to the rest of the “Eurozone”. In Greece, the average gross monthly wage, including social security and taxes, is 803 euros [about £700 or US$1063], while the lowest gross salary in, for example, Ireland is 1300 euros, in France 1250 euros and in the Netherlands 1400 euros."

Just a question before i present this evidence to someone; do these stats take into account different Purchasing Power Parity between the countries mentioned?