Indulging domestic political interests? "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way."
A statement from a recent Goldman Sachs report on Spain: "The more the Spanish administration indulges domestic political interests … the more explicit conditionality is likely to be demanded." That's banker-speak for, "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way."
The report from the troika reportedly will not be issued now until after the US election, as Greece waits and is in free-fall, needing the next release of funds, as the country faces bankruptcy.
No news today: Greek journalists strike- No TV - Radio - Newspapers
Greece was hit by a news blackout as the country's journalists became the latest group of workers to go on strike in protest against new austerity measures. The 24-hour walkout meant there were no radio or TV news programs and newspapers will not appear today.
Wednesday much of Greece will come to a standstill, as a 24 hour general strike has been scheduled to protest against the cutbacks. The strike is expected to close schools, disrupt hospital services and stop trains and ferries.
General strike to shut down Greece on Wednesday
Public sector workers including tax and customs officers, social security fund workers, employees at municipalities, prefectures and public utilities, state-owned bank workers, merchants, lawyers and a number of private sector workers will be participating in a 24-hour strike on Wednesday called by the country's two biggest umbrella unions, GSEE and ADEDY. Gas station owners also said that they will remain shut until 3 p.m., while a strike by air traffic controllers will mean interruptions to flights, especially during the midday hours.
Nearly a third of businesses in central Athens closed due to recession
Greece's deep recession has forced almost a third of businesses in the capital's commercial district to close down as shrinking incomes and frequent strikes drive Athenians away.
Tens of thousands of small businesses, which make up a big chunk of the struggling economy, have shut since Greece secured a 110-billion-euro bailout package in 2010 in exchange for promises of painful austerity measures.
A great deal of Greece's economy are small mom and pop type businesses, struggling to survive. Those hit hardest have been in the Athens areas, but it has been spreading out to other parts of the country. My son lives on a Greek island and recently told me that it has now begun to get very bad on the island where he lives, with many businesses open for years closing their doors, and people whose incomes are so down lamenting that they do not know how they are going to pay their bills.
Two million cars remain uninsured out of 7 million.
Car owners who have not insured their vehicles, as required by law, can expect to receive notice from the General Secretariat of Information Systems asking them to produce an insurance contract or pay 250 euros and have their car insured. Cross-checking has revealed that about 2 million vehicle owners have no insurance.
And many of course have no money to pay for gas to go in those vehicles.......
IKA pensioners given extension to register
People receiving pensions from the IKA Social Security Foundation have been granted an extension until October 5 instead of the previous September 28 deadline to register in the organization's census, IKA said, adding that pensioners who fail to turn up by that date will not be receiving a pension for November. IKA has been conducting a census for several months in order to weed out false claimants.
They have actually been doing this census for well over a year, and discovered many fraudulent payments - as much as 8 billion euros over a decade.
IKA, Greece’s largest state social security fund, paid out as much as 8 billion euros ($11.5 billion) in fraudulent pension claims in the last decade, Skai TV said, citing IKA Director Rovertos Spyropoulos.
I am told by my Greek American friends living in US, that you are not allowed to collect a pension from Greece, unless you live there. They tell me that the way Greek Americans collect it anyway, (the payments go to their bank accounts in Greece) is by letting their pensions stack up and every year they go back to Greece and withdraw it all.
Greece Labor Costs Drop
It is becoming cheaper for companies to hire workers in the European Union —
Greece leads the way, if that’s the right expression, after hourly labor costs fell by almost 12 percent in the first quarter, following a drop of more than 8 percent in the previous three months, according to the European statistics agency Eurostat. This rounded off more than 12 months of successively steeper declines in the cost of employing Greeks.
By way of comparison, German labor costs rose 2.5 percent in the latest quarter, after adding 1.8 percent in the first quarter and 3.1 percent in the final months of 2011.