Here are a few tidbits from Greek labor leaders protesting budget cuts that will prevent a total economic collapse.
“The measures are grossly unfair,” Dimitris Bratis, the president of the Greek teaching federation, which will strike for 24 hours tomorrow, told NET TV today. “We’re being asked to pay for the crisis. Greek taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill again.”Err, of course they are. That's where the borrowed money has been going, you know. That was good, but here's the grand national champion quote so far from the crisis.
“The attempt to fix the fiscal crisis underlines clearly the government’s attempt to move the cost of this attempt to the real economy,” Nikos Skorinis, the secretary of GSEVEE said in an e-mailed statement.Wow. The underlying mental construct that leads one to make that statement without their head exploding must envision the government as something like this.
Update: Upon reflection, this quote may not be as paralyzingly stupid as I had originally thought. By "real economy" he may be differentiating between the legitimate portion of the Greek economy and the black market where no taxes are paid. The estimates I've seen suggest that as much as 30% of the economy is hidden and therefore contributes nothing to the support of the government.
Yeeks. My only hope for sanity here, is that whatever they originally said was said in Greek, and they are the victims of really bad translators.
ReplyDeleteA forlorn hope, I know, but it's all I've got.
Another hope would be that this was the best they could come up with to try and defend the wages of their union members. It's not like they've got a lot to work with. On the other hand, it would have been nice to see them say, "Our unions stand ready to sacrifice for the good of Greece."
ReplyDeleteDittos for the spoiled brats at Berkley.