Greek Media Deliberately Misleading Greek Population About Debt Crisis?

Athens News carries an editorial today about the Greek governments debt problems, with the title “biting the bullet”, like putting ammunition in your mouth is a good idea.

As is usual with what I read in the Greek media, the article comes across to me at least, as denigrating the Greek people while giving the Greek politicians a pass.

I’ll pick out some of the highlights of the article

GREECE, along with Italy, is considered the eurozone’s most corrupt country, according to the Berlin-based watchdog group Transparency International. The report, which was published on December 1, said that corruption in the form of tax evasion and graft is fuelling the debt crisis, which has engulfed both countries and is threatening the wider eurozone.

If Greece was truly a democracy and truly a capitalist society, the amount of alleged (I do mean alleged, not actual) alleged tax evasion should tell the government something, they are not doing a good job.

If a business was finding it was loosing customers and customers were not happy with the prices being charged the business would have to look at its own actions and find out what it was doing wrong.

But the Greek media seems to think that this way of thinking is completely backwards. Athens News seems to believe the customers are thieves for thinking the service they are getting is not good and that the customers should be forced to buy from the business even if the people think the products and services being offered are low quality and high cost.

Like I said, why does the Greek media feel it is okay to give the government a pass on the bad and expensive services that they are perceived as offering, and why does the Greek media feel it is appropriate to attack the customers?

The results of the survey will only reinforce the widely-held notion in northern Europe that the South got itself into this mess because it never played by the rules, was unable to tackle endemic corruption and could not enforce any form of fiscal discipline.

Again the “lead editor” feels it is appropriate to attack the customers, and not only that, this paragraph attacks the customers and says they are the cause of the businesses problems.

So the people are dissatisfied with the services that the company offers so that is why the business is in trouble. This should tell the business/government they need to offer better services.

So why does the Greek press feel the real solution is for the customers to change their mind and not for the business/government to offer a better service?

And imposing fiscal discipline is almost impossible when countries like Greece and Italy – but especially the former – have built their houses on sand. Within the fierce competitive environment of the global economy, building a state based on graft and tax evasion is tantamount to suicide. Unfortunately, Greece is now being forced to deconstruct its house brick by brick, and tread cautiously lest it all comes tumbling down. The problem is that building from scratch is costing thousands of households their livelihood and tearing the middle class to shreds.

The lead editor then goes on to make an obvious error, well I assume it must be an error and that he/she actually meant something else because they say it is “almost impossible” to impose fiscal discipline on Greece.

Has the lead editor even read the news? Is the lead editor even aware that the Greek government cannot borrow a single cent on the open market? Is the lead editor not aware that the yield on Greek 2 year bonds, if they were sold on a truly free open market would be 100% a year?

To say that it is impossible to impose fiscal discipline on Greek government is plainly false.

And again with the tax evasion. First of all the Greek government takes in over 30% of the Greek GDP in tax revenues. The UK on the other hand takes around 22-25% of GDP in tax revenues.

IF tax evasion was such a problem in Greece, how much money should the Greek government be taking? Perhaps the lead editor would be satisfied with over 40%?

I wonder what the lead editor would consider a more competitive economy. An economy with low taxes or an economy with higher taxes?

But there is really no point in blaming the government, in this case the interim government of Lucas Papademos, and the ‘evil’ forces of the market, given that all previous governments failed to create the necessary armour that would shield Greece from the excesses of the global economy.

As if to make my point, the lead editor says there is no point in blaming the government. Really? Why not? Are governments not answerable to the people? Aren’t governments supposed to respond to the wants to the people?

Or has democracy been absent from Greece for so long that the Greek media has forgotten what democracy looks like?

No matter how loud demonstrators shout and how just their cause is, Greece must bite the bullet of austerity, even if that will not guarantee its exit from this crisis any time soon. Any other option will spell doom.

Again with the dramatic statements, why does the Greek media feel it is professional and appropriate to say to the population at large, that Greeks will lead to the country into doom without describing how and why their predition will manifest itself.

And on the subject of “doom” what exactly does this look like and could it be worse than what is happening in Greece at the moment and if so why?

I find myself asking the question, what exactly did the lead editor want to achieve when he wrote this article.

To me it seems there could be a couple of reasons.

1. The first is that the lead editor writes it for an international audience and he wants to show that Greek are serious about reforms.

2. The second is that he/she believes that Greeks are living in a fantasy land and they need to put their noses to the grindstone and everything will work out okay.

Greek needs to follow orders unquestioningly and work hard and they will find they will get out of this “crisis”

3. Or maybe the article is to show the lead editor is superior to his fellow Greeks. Greeks need to stop moaning about the problems they themselves have created and work their way out of the problem.

A couple of issues with the last point.

First the Greek people did not get into this mess the government did, second of all the people who caused the problem are still in power so why should people belive that the people who got Greece into the mess are the people who can get Greece out of the mess?

A common argument Greeks have, “well it was the people’s choice for voting these politicians, you get the government you deserve”

Okay that may be true, in which case Greece is going through the process whereby people are realising that the current system is corrupt and that there must be another way.

Except this is not being allowed to happen.

Instead of politicians being more accountable to the population, politicians are becoming less accountable.

Whereas before politicians were in some way accountable to their electorate through the ballot box, now general elections in Greece are not held even though the population has no confidence in the government.

Whereas before the prime minister was voted in by the people, now he is unelected.

Like it or not, before politicians were in some way accountable for their actions, the prime mister did have some motivation to do what the people wanted.

Now Greece has a situation where there is absolutely no motivation for the prime minister to act in the interests of the people because his job is in no way connected to being popular.

If things were allowed to pan out in a normal way, there would have been changes in Greece, there would have had to have been.

Except the banks has stepped in and stopped the changes from taking place and not only have they stopped democratic changes taking place.

Things have become less democratic with Greek giving up control of its finances to the EU and to the banks, and taxes are being imposed on the people, which the people do not want.

If the Greeks get the government they deserve the current financial crisis has exposed all these liar, incompetent and corrupt politicians.

And yet instead of allowing a Greek default which would have taken all or a lot of these people out of power, the banks have stepped in and kept all the decision makers in power in the name of “stability”.

So the corruption of all the decision makers has led Greece to default and has led to complete economic instability and yet the best thing the so-called experts can come up with is to keep the people who have been mishandling the country in power in the name of stability.

All that has happened with the Greek economic problems is that the people who caused the problems have more power and less accountability.

Why does this journalist believe the people who caused the problems have the answer to solve the problems and why would he want to place his confidence in them?

Surely that is the problem?

Greeks have been putting their confidence in politicians for years, Greeks have not asked enough questions and look what has happened.

Yet this journalist for some reason thinks Greek should be more unquestioning. This journalist thinks the answer is to ask even less questions.

If the Greek crisis has taught the Greeks anything it should be that governments cannot be trusted.

If Greeks listen to the advice of this journalist then the journalist is correct, people really do get the government they deserve.

If the people continue to have faith in the same people who are obviously destroying their country then that is what they deserve.

Except now Greeks are being told they have no choice but to follow the orders fof the people that caused the problems in the first place.

This should start alarm bells ringing with the Greek population.

If the only way the government can get you to do what they want is by threatening you with calamity and tanks on the street then there is clearly something wrong with their argument.

If the government cannot come up with a logical argument that people can understand and agree with and if the government can only”sell” its messages with threats of uncertainty and “doom” there is something fundamentally wrong with what they are trying to achieve and it must be something which is against the interest of the people that the plan is supposed to be helping.

If people cannot get on board with government plans to help the people with logical explanation then there the government plan does not serve the interest of the people.

If the government can only get the people to agree with a plan that is supposed help the people with threatening the people with chaos then there is something wrong with the plan.

The Greek media would do well to ask more questions and to encourage Greek to ask more questions and not encouraging Greeks to ask fewer questions and to be more obedient.

An unquestioning attitude and belief in politicians is exactly what has brought Greece to the situation it finds itself in today.

This is the article in full

Biting the bullet

by Lead Editor 4 Dec 2011

GREECE, along with Italy, is considered the eurozone’s most corrupt country, according to the Berlin-based watchdog group Transparency International. The report, which was published on December 1, said that corruption in the form of tax evasion and graft is fuelling the debt crisis, which has engulfed both countries and is threatening the wider eurozone. Greece ranked 80th most corrupt, on a par with countries like Columbia, Peru, El Salvador and Thailand. The results of the survey will only reinforce the widely-held notion in northern Europe that the South got itself into this mess because it never played by the rules, was unable to tackle endemic corruption and could not enforce any form of fiscal discipline. And imposing fiscal discipline is almost impossible when countries like Greece and Italy – but especially the former – have built their houses on sand. Within the fierce competitive environment of the global economy, building a state based on graft and tax evasion is tantamount to suicide. Unfortunately, Greece is now being forced to deconstruct its house brick by brick, and tread cautiously lest it all comes tumbling down. The problem is that building from scratch is costing thousands of households their livelihood and tearing the middle class to shreds. This year’s report came on the heels of yet another general strike – the 22nd in 20 months – which paralysed the country with hordes of demonstrators hitting the streets to protest against protracted austerity measures. But there is really no point in blaming the government, in this case the interim government of Lucas Papademos, and the ‘evil’ forces of the market, given that all previous governments failed to create the necessary armour that would shield Greece from the excesses of the global economy. No matter how loud demonstrators shout and how just their cause is, Greece must bite the bullet of austerity, even if that will not guarantee its exit from this crisis any time soon. Any other option will spell doom.

 

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