This has been the general reaction from Greek unions. Via SkyNews:
Thousands of Greek civil servants have taken to the streets of Athens to vent their fury over government plans to rescue the economy that would see cutbacks on pay and benefits.
Scores of public services, ranging from state hospitals, schools and banks, were disrupted by the the 24-hour action in the capital staged by Adedy, the country's civil service umbrella union....
In Athens, about 5000 disgruntled workers took to the streets waving white and red flags, chanting "Let the oligarchy pay for the crisis, not us," as they marched before the nation's sprawling parliament.
Isn't going on strike effective for students and labor unions in France? Perhaps the Greeks are just taking a page from the French playbook. It has certainly been effective in the past in California.
ReplyDeleteOfcourse California has a budget deficit approaching 30% of its expenditures. One of it solutions has been to print its own money in the form of IOU's. Perhaps the Greeks could try that.
Human nature seems to drive people to do almost anything to avoid the pain of increasing their productivity...
Looks like the Greek government is just not educated enough on the matters of surviving a crisis like this. They could take a page from a book where such a page was written.
ReplyDeleteSo there are the untouchable Euro/eurozone and the need for devaluation in Greece. But how? Easy peasy! The government mandates a second, national, "temporary" quasy-currency tagged (only used locally, as in addition) to euro so that any purchase or payment is compised of both. If an item costs E100, an 20% inflated Greek price would be E100 + 20 units of the said quasy-currency.
As it wouldn't affect the eurozone directly, the euro powers could sigh and looks the other way. Riots would still happen as the artificial inflation would eat into everyone's purchasing power. Border control of any goods traffic would follow, as it would be cheaper to import and smuggle, then buy locally. And say hello to black market and barter, too. Anyway, this seem to be the solution to the eurozone integrity at the expense of Greek economy, which could be considered a fair deal by the eurozone given the circumstances.
Does this make sense?