That Workers' Paradise

"There is no such thing as temporary Grexit, there is only a Grexit or no Grexit. There is Greece in the euro zone or Greece not in the euro zone. But in that case it's Europe that retreats and no longer progresses and I don't want that."
French President Francois Hollande

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, speaks with French President Francois Hollande, center, and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during a meeting of eurozone heads of state at the EU Council building in Brussels on Sunday, July 12, 2015. Skeptical European creditors raced Sunday to narrow differences both among themselves and with Athens, aiming to come up with a tentative agreement to stave off an immediate financial collapse in Greece that would reverberate across the continent. (AP Photo)

"The most important currency has been lost and that is trust. That means that we will have tough discussions and there will be no agreement at any price."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel 

"How can they demand all these measures at the last minute without securing a lifeline to see us through till next week?"
Greek government official  

Greek President Alexis Tsipras, after seeking Greek public opinion and vowing not to submit to the European Union's unfair demands on poor cash-strapped, high-unemployment Greece that deserves much better, is now facing the prospect of the inevitable come to pass. He has a suggested German option for a "time-out" from the euro zone if he thinks the drachma's return can boost Greece's plight, or he can bring before his parliament a draft proposal with its measures on tax and pension reforms.

In a classic scenario of having one's cake and eating it as well, Greece has long lived beyond its means, the state incapable of raising enough wherewithal to fund its extraordinarily generous benefits  for the Greek population; benefits paid for through loans that haven't been repaid and for which Greece would appreciate the generosity of forgiveness by taxpayers of other EU countries who don't aspire to such benefits for themselves.

"This is a beautiful place (Zakynthos, Greece) and people come from all over to admire it, but every village has its donkeys. I don't feel guilty. Every country has its own mentality and it has never been the same as that here. What we have is the mentality that rules are made to be broken", said Spartakos Delianis, a retired mathematics professor, now restaurateur. "In Greece the fish stinks from the head."

"I don't see anything that I can do about this. It was a common secret here [that many people claimed to be blind on the island, to qualify for a special government compensatory grant of $477 monthly], but this is not the only place in Greece where this kind of thing goes on. This is a beautiful island where some people tried to earn money too easily. Just look at the voters lists. Of 200 names on the list 20 of them are dead and some of them died a long time ago", Anastasia Pomoni added.

Retired Greeks receive quite munificent pensions valued at 96 percent of their earnings pre-retirement. Government workers comprise 20 percent of the total workforce and they are given retirement bonuses of up to 100,000 euros. There are over 600 worker categories permitted to retire at age 50 for women and 55 for men; people for example who work as steam bath attendants, wind instrument musicians and television presenters.

The honour system in effect in Greece for its public transit loses 410 million euros annually, with the national railway recording losses of 600 million euros a year. Dry since 1930, the institute for the Protection of Kopais Lake nonetheless has over 1,700 workers on its books. For every official car, the EU discovered there were 50 drivers in Greece; 45 gardeners worked in a small plot at one local hospital. Sounds like a workers' Eden.

Well, why after all, blame the ordinary Greek for cushioning their feather-nest. The Greek government admitted to the EU in 2004 that it had intentionally cooked its books to underestimate their deficit to make certain the country would present as eligible to join the eurozone. So when for years about 40,000 unmarried daughters of deceased public service workers were given 550 million euros per year, that generosity simply reflected the country's estimable values. 

Camouflage-print tarps were seen as a solution to tax assessors discovering the number of pools to be roughly 20,000 when homeworkers in a posh Athens neighbourhood were required to pay a luxury tax for their pools. After using Google Earth to scan backyards to determine whether the 300 that did report they owned swimming pools represented the correct number, the tarp-brilliant scheme was cooked.