Athens brought to a stand still again

We had a strike at the Internationals Airports today too. Customs Officers walked off the job for better pay and conditions. We have been lucky though, our economic fundamentals are strong, we retain a triple A rating, financial regulatory bodies are stringent and Chinese demand our mineral resources is high, but for how long.

We are not immune from global conditions.

It's terrible that employers dock your pay if you cannot get to work. It's not your fault public transport workers are striking.

Will be praying for you and all those in Europe and elsewhere suffering through austerity measures.

There's so much that can be said and I don't know where to start...

I sympathise with people unable to go to work, but then again 48h strikes is the least you could expect in a society where people have lost at least 20% of their income in pay cuts and increased taxes, in a year - and the trend is going on... and the debt itself is also increasing, a vicious cycle with no end in sight.

I have no sympathy for trade unionists, but unfortunately it's been proven they are the only ones who can maintain some resistance. The "indignants" movement that looked so healthy back in spring appears to have died out.

The tourists - well, it's high time we stopped relying on tourism for our survival. We developed it after the war in a country completely destroyed by the Germans because we needed some hard cash quickly - but in the long run it led to a society that's basing its prosperity on the hordes of drunkards to start arriving in April and "have fun" with cheap booze and public sex. If I go to Kos and speak greek to a restaurant owner... they'll be offended... that's not an exaggeration, it's happened to me...

Don't protest because you harm tourism, don't do this, don't do that, don't sneeze in public in front of tourists... but on the other hand, let them do whatever they want, our economy relies on them - sorry, I'd rather go bust and start over...

Well, these islands have always been rich, they were among the richest parts of the greek-speaking world a few generations back, with merchant shipping and not only that. We could still do that instead of begging drunkards.

Closed professions... whether or not applying some standards of quality and/or some protectionism in professional licenses would be good or bad under what conditions etc would make an interesting discussion under normal circumstances, but now we have a crisis. "Open all closed professions to everyone to increase competition" as a financial doctrine that you are not even allowed to question - as in, let butchers open surgeries and let free competition close them down - what on earth...

I read this article on BBC today BBC News - Has Western capitalism failed?. I quote

Professor Tim Jackson from Surrey said:

The days of spending money we do not have on things we do not need to impress people we do not care about are over.

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That's the kind of dark ages I want to see us out of, and then we can discuss about the rest. The dark ages of consumerism, which is the very heart, the driving force itself of the global financial system.

These were just quick thoughts, randomly laid down...

Do you gonesimera read/understand greek? (are you greek or do you just live there?) You can peruse some of the other thread here, for example we have Debtocracy in a thread gone to page 2 by now I guess, in case you haven't seen it, and it's available with english subtitles if you need them. I'm sure Alexander Nevsky will join me in recommending the thread with professor Yannaras's interviews for a broader perspective full of cultural references on why we don't feel comfortable with our state itself. That's a key point if you want to look beyond the short-term present crisis. But you'd need to understand spoken greek to follow it.

The greek People who are protesting are in my view an inspiration as they're standing against the collusion between the Greek Government and the International Financiers who are making Greece a whipping boy.

Imposing drastic penalties on the Greek citizens to appease the Capitalist Stock Markets is immoral...

Your suggestion about the skeleton staff is a good one, from many perspectives: if there's no public transport, how can people go to the protests?

Trouble is, in times of crisis people's reactions are hard to control / coordinate. The worst scenario would be if different groups start turning against each other.

if you go on strike you are not paid.

i am against strikes because they make things worse for common people like us.
i believe that movements like "I AM NOT PAYING" are much better.
many people don't have money to pay anyway...

I think the end of this is nearing. Greece runs out of funds by mid November. Either Greece will be evicted from the Euro or for once the EU will take responsibility and do the right thing by standing by the great Greek People and atone for putting them in such a horrible situation to begin with...

The problem with saying that western capitalism has failed, is that Greece never had capitalism. They are a socialist entitlement state. If western capitalism has flaws then look into japanese capitalism if you think theirs a difference or its a better model.
People around the world have woken up and there are emerging countries with big brain power. The west better accept that its a different world and there no longer the center of it.

buzuxi02 said:

The problem with saying that western capitalism has failed, is that Greece never had capitalism.

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Are you referring to the BBC article I pointed at? It's not about Greece at all. I would also say, the unbridled consumerism part that goes hand-to-hand with the holy and unquestionable doctrine of constant growth, well beyond covering the actual needs of a society, that part has definitely found a good home in Greece.