In Greece, Crony Capitalists Will Squeeze You and Freeze You

Whenever you see odd distortions in an economy, always look for government regulations that limit the ability of free markets to ease problems.

Greeks Can’t Find Euros to Buy Heating Oil in Winter Economy

By Oliver Staley

In the Greek mountain town of Kastoria, less than an hour from the Albanian border, Kostas Tsitskos, 88, can’t afford fuel to heat his home against the winter’s cold. So he and his son live in a single bedroom, warmed by a small electric heater.

“One room is enough,” said Tsitskos, who lives on a 734 euro-a-month ($971) pension and doesn’t have the 1,000 euros a month he needs to buy heating oil.

Greece is facing a heating-oil crisis. With an economy that has contracted for five years and an unemployment rate at a record 25 percent, residents in northern Greece can’t heat their homes. Kastoria hasn’t received funds from the central government to warm schools and the mayor said he will close all 53 of them rather than let children freeze, a step already taken in a nearby town. Truckloads of wood are arriving from Bulgaria as families search for alternative fuels.

“This is the coldest place in Greece,” said Emmanouil Hatzisimeonidis, Kastoria’s mayor, in an interview in his office. “It’s winter from October to April. This year we are very lucky. Last year, it was snowing for four months.”

When temperatures fall below freezing, Tsitskos spends most of his time in his bedroom and rarely leaves the house, he said. For meals, he and his son move the electrical heater to the kitchen. Other older residents in the town spend their days at a senior center and cafes to save on heating costs, returning home only to sleep, he said.
Austerity Cuts

Austerity measures have cut government salaries and benefits, raised the retirement age and reduced services.

The household price for heating oil in Greece reached 1,266 euros per 1,000 liters (264 gallons) in the second quarter of 2012, surging 48 percent from a year earlier, according to the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based organization. The same quantity cost 700 pounds (861 euros) in the U.K., according to the IEA, and $1,045 (790 euros) in New York, according to a state agency.

Greeks pay both excise and value-added taxes on heating oil that can make up 42 percent of the total cost. The mayors of the region are petitioning the government to be exempted from the tax.

Greece’s oil prices are high because of laws that protect the country’s two refining companies and prevent competition, said Pavlos Eleftheriadis, a lecturer in law at the University of Oxford in England, who studies monopolies.

“The Greek political system works for the insiders,” said Eleftheriadis, a native of Greece. “If you’re an insider, there will be an attempt to protect you. If you’re a poor person in Kastoria, you are on your own.

Read the rest here.

(ht drewmx)