mi pare chiaro che la germania e quindi anche la troika tergiversi sul rapporto per dare il via libera agli aiuti; i primi ad esprimersi dovranno essere i politici greci, con l'approvazione delle misure aggiuntive, altrimenti tutto il castello non sta in piedi....
The crisis in Greece does have its upsides, at least for tourists. The Acropolis, a UNESCO World Heritage site above the rooftops of Athens, recently extended its opening hours. It now closes at 7 p.m.
Before, it often closed shortly after lunchtime. "It was unacceptable for our foreign visitors," says Transport Minister Dimitrios Reppas.
In the midst of the crisis, the number of museum guards, at the Acropolis, for example, has magically increased, as have the numbers of ambulance drivers and nurses. "People are enthusiastic," says Reppas, adding: "A real consolidation is underway here."
Officials from the European Union, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB), who have a different definition of consolidation, are unlikely to be quite as enthusiastic.....
So much for the theory. A visit to the Acropolis offers an example of what is really happening. There are more museum guards here now, a consequence of the Greek interpretation of consolidation.
Consolidation, Greek Style
Here's how it works: OSE, the national railroad, was expected to eliminate its annual deficit of €1-2 billion by slashing about 1,800 of its 5,800 jobs. But, as in other government-owned businesses, the employees were not let go but transferred to new jobs instead -- albeit with reduced pay.
Greece's partners in the euro zone are gradually losing patience with Prime Minister Papandreou and his team. A year after receiving €110 billion in international financial aid commitments, Greece has hopelessly failed to reach the agreed austerity goals. Its lenders are now questioning the government's ability to reform, the economy has declined even further than feared, and important tax revenues have failed to materialize.
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.....labor leaders like Nikos Fotopoulos, 48. He is a union leader with the partially state-owned electric utility DEI, a former Trotskyist and, for the last 33 years, a member of Papandreou's PASOK Party. .
Since 1999, his union has received close to €31.3 million in direct and indirect financial subsidies from its employer. In a particularly absurd twist,
the utility has paid the union €115,000 in the last three years for demonstrations -- against its own shareholders, and against the government and its austerity measures.
Companies like DEI or the partially state-owned Hellenic Petroleum are still viewed as workers' paradises.
The roughly 2,500 employees of the oil company are paid 17.8 monthly salaries a year, and even drivers and doormen earn annual salaries upwards of €90,000. Chairman Tassos Giannitsis nonchalantly attributes the high salary levels to his company's "highly specific business and substantial dependence on international price and profit margins." Besides, he adds, personnel costs make up less than three percent of revenues.
More and more Greeks are also tapping into their savings, either because they need the money or to move a few euros to a safer place,
just in case the drachma is reintroduced. Deposits in private bank accounts have already declined by €31 billion since the beginning of 2010.
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Economist Varoufakis ran a simulation to see what would happen if the country had to continue along its current austerity course.
He concluded that even if Greece fulfilled all requirements and privatization goals, and the recession came to an end, the country's mountain of debt would continue to grow. It would be more than double the national income by 2020, which means that a default would be practically "guaranteed."
That outcome, he noted, was based on optimistic assumptions.
