Thankfully, our time in the Hellenic Republic occurred before the so called "Greek miracle" of the early 2000s when Greece had been permitted into the EU. The government could no longer manipulate the drachma to its economic advantage, but was able to secure EU loans at low rates to fund its overspending habits. That period of wild spending, uncontrolled development and big loans--we never observed. I do remember well that the Greeks themselves, were honest as the day was long, and worked very hard. In my, pre-Greek-Miracle, end-of the millennium-experience, the Greeks had little access to cheap bank loans and used only what cash they had saved. Each year we would observe in Athens certain private homes and apartment buildings under continuous construction for years. In the big cities and in the country side these building would go up in stages, by years, the poured concrete slabs riven through with rusty iron "re bar" rods sticking skyward as if a promise to the Gods and the hope of the next level to come would clearly indicate the owner's objectives--and lack of any more funds for that year. We observed many a building go up year by year from the basement, the first floor and then if money was available, the top floors.
It is sad to learn what has happened to Greece in recent years, since 2007 and it is especially hard for a true lover of the Greeks a Hellenophile (ελλενοφιλος) like me.
The New York Times article ("The Way Greeks Live Now," Russell Shorto, February 13, 2012) underscores some drastic economic consequences of the largely American-generated financial collapse of 2007-2008 which left the hapless Greeks high and dry with a big bills to pay from excesssive spending (180% of GDP some claim) a sharp drop in tourism, high energy costs and collapsing markets for its goods. The result was ruin.
The Times piece reviews some of the damage:
One-fourth of Greek enterprises have gone out of business.
Half of all small concerns in the nation can not meet present payrolls.
The suicide rate has increased by 40% in the first half of 2011.
While the offical rate of unemployed is at Great Depression-level of 20%, in some demographic groups it is worse. For example, nearly half the under-25 population is unemployed.
Greek bankers report that their customers have little confidence in the nation's banks and have withdrawn one-third of their savings, and either sent it abroad, or have it buried in their back yards. With little money in circulation, the economy has shrunk by a staggering 7% and a flourishing barter economy has sprung up.
Emigration has spurted, as Greeks with ties abroad leave their homeland like passengers leaving a sinking ship. Last September, organizers of a government-sponsored seminar on emigrating to Australia, a program which typically drew little interest and only 42 respondents in the previous year, was overwhelmed when 12,000 Greeks signed up.
Even more saddening, and more "transformational" as the Times article states, is the reality of what happens when the government is economically powerless and so desperate for ready-cash that it will sell anything or grant permits for almost anything that may possibly increase income or make even unsubstantiated claims to "provide jobs".
One such case reported by the NY Times piece describes how the cash-flush Chinese, have largely taken over Greece's main port in Piraeus, "with an idea to making it a conduit" to ship it own goods into European ports. The story began in 2009 at the ehight of the crisis when the giant Chinese Overseas Shipping Company (COSCO) closed one of the largest investment deals in Europe when it leased a major portion of Athen's Port of Piraeus, its important container terminals, in the Greek main commercial port, situated about six miles southeast of Athens. The Chinese paid the equivalent of $5 billion dollars to lease the site for the next 35 years. The project in southeastern Europe will give them ready access to valuable markets bordering the Black Sea and in eastern Europe.
In 2009, the Greeks were facing bad times and they had to make a deal. The Chinese may have dangled the prospect of thousands of jobs for unemployed Greeks and perhaps also held out the possiblity at that time to buy Greek bonds at more reasonable rates than the European financiers were willing to provide. But after the deal went through, many Greeks may have seen the parallel with the wooden horse of their own ancient myths and history. For though the Chinese promised some five-hundred jobs to local Greek dock workers these promises were not fulfilled in the manner the Greeks imagined, and worse they seem to have introduced a Trojan horse with unforeseen and terrible consequences.
According to a June 8, 2011 NPR video program, written by Louisa Lim, there is much to complain about in regard to labor conditions for those who work on the Chinese docks in the Port of Piraeus. Cosco has brought its own "China rules" to labor practices. These are not of European standards or Greek, but are designed solely to keep a cap on labor costs. For one thing, Cosco does not allow collective bargaining or labor unions. All workers are temporary and all employees are hired with no benefits. Workers are employed by a subsidiary company which sets the harsh rules. And in present-day Greece with more than 20% of the workforce unemployed, who is going to complain?
But workers complaints, not withstanding the fact that workers who complain are summarily fired, have begun to never-the-less slowly filter out of the tightly enclosed and monitored Chinese work area. On the Chinese docks the workers get paid for an eight hour shift---about half of what they would on the Greek docks, or about 50 Euros a shift or @ 600 Euros a month. The eight-hour shift is exactly that eight hours with no coffee breaks, toilet breaks or lunch breaks. When men working in the "straddle derricks" (which load and unload the shipping containers to and from the ship decks) 40 feet off the ground complained about the need for a toilet break they were told by supervisors to pee into the sea, or use an empty coffee container. There is no night differential, no over time and no weekend shifts. All the workers are kept "on call" so they do not know when they will be notified of a change in schedule and must simply wait to be called. These complaints have been verified by inspections by the Greek Labor Department.
The Greek dockworker unions have complained that the Chinese have imported their own labor practices to Greece where it has infected the industry causing an erosion of wages and labor rights which cuts across the market. Furthermore the Greek unions claim that big, cash-flush Cosco is gaining unwarranted control by dangling promises of future investments, purposely slowing the (formerly) agreed to building of an additional pier in the Chinese zone, to limit its overhead, and using its clout with the Greek government to gain concessions such as exemptions from certain dock and port fees. Their behavior is tantamount to blackmail some claim and suggest that their aim is eventual full control of the port. Some also suggest that it was Cosco's bullying which prevented the port authority from signing a deal with a major shipping company which would have been a Cosco competitor.
Then too there are reports of additional new Chinese investments other parts of Greece. One is a in a tiny placid and pristine seaport, Kokkinos Pirgos, a place I have visited (in 1997) on the southern coast of Crete known for its pristine beaches, sea turtles, and fine tomato crops. The Chinese are proposing a giant container port for this lovely place. They promise the port would generate eight hundred jobs, but the locals say it would end tourism, and its fishing industry and cost a few thousand jobs so its a choice of who the Cretans want to work for--themselves or the Chinese. Will the changes that are being pressed onto the Greeks will be worth the alterations in lifestyles? Most Greeks are not sure. They should review the film "It's a Wonderful Life" to better understand the choices that they must make and to understand what they will get with development is an oil-begrimed Mediterranean Pottersville. Kokkinos Pirgos is not alone, the Chinese are also looking at more development in the big port of Thessaloniki in the east. (After NPR, All Things Considered, 10-3-2010, by Johanna Kakissis)
There are other vultures flying over the prostrate Greek carcass. Tiny but cash rich and well connected (to American interests) Qatar. Itty-bitty Qatar, about three times the size of Long Island, NY (and once a British protectorate and a former oyster-pearling capital, is today a minuscule, but phenomenally wealthy oil-and-gas-rich fiefdom of the Al Thani family, which runs it as an absolute monarchy, and with the consent and collusion of the American government which has a huge military presence and intimate relationship with the Emir, an American protege. With an enormous $200 billion GDP derived from oil and gas production and a nominal population of about 2 million, it has the highest per capita GDP in the world ($100,000 per person per year) and one of the world's highest economic growth rates at nearly 20%.) is looking to spend $5 billion dollars in Greece on various projects to which many Greeks might object. such as more tourism infrastructure (Greece has too much of it) and to turning some of the lovely, pristine Greek isles into a high rise "Florida of Europe" for the affluent of the Continent and elsewhere. I can imagine that as in the Cosco enterprises the Greeks might be employed as bell hops and cleaning staff in these places.
If this Aegean Pottersville is what the future holds for Greece, I might suggest to my intelligent, wise and industrious friends in Greece, get out of the Eurozone. Default, it is no shame. Return to the drachma. Devalue your currency, as you did in the past, to make all your products and enterprises competitive on the world market. Tourism will revive and with it the thousands of small businesses throughout Greece will come back. Kick out the Al Thanis, and the Chinese and keep Hellenica for the Hellenes.
Get the picture?
rjk
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