I've Been Diagnosed as Heartless and Greedy by My Spin Doctors
Ever since the New Democratic party took over the reins of Greece in March 2004, some media outlets have afforded them an extraordinarily long grace period which continues at present. Initially, I agreed with their lenience and even though I agree with any government efforts to combat the corruption and financial mismanagement of this country. Karamanlis has been in power almost two years now so it's time to stop holding his hand and covering up his government's many mistakes and missteps. The government already has enough spin doctors and sycophants on its payroll. The media needs to stop spinning the news as they've done in the examples I've listed below and just report it.
When the State paid 1.5 billion€ to rid themselves of feckless OTE employees, the press cheered the decision instead of questioning the financial feasibility of such a hyperinflated payout for parasitic public servants.
When the judiciary was rocked to its very foundations by countless charges of bribery and trial-fixing (Ted Laskaris at Phylax expertly blogged this ongoing sordid saga), the media towed the party line again and applauded Karamanlis for tackling corruption. However, they didn't bother to ask if he even had a backup plan to keep the already creakingly slow justice machinery on top of its caseloads while judges and lawyers alike were being removed as the indictments were handed out.
When the deficit was constantly revised upwards (just do a search for "Greek deficit" and just try to count how many times it was revised), they again, rightly blamed PASOK for incurring such an exorbitant debt but refused to question the inability of New Democracy's Finance Minister to accurately report the magnitude of the debt in his first 3 attempts. He also could not pass the 2006 budget in under 3 attempts. This is also the same man who predicted he would be able to increase State revenue collection by 11% and when he realized he couldn't, he downgraded his original prediction to 5%. When he managed to collect 5.4%, the media praised him for 'exceeding' his revised target instead of lambasting him for having only collected half of his original target.
These unofficial State cheerleaders have gone overboard this time with today's commentary in Kathimerini. The journalist, Nikos Nikolaos goes back 30 years into the archives of his memory to tell his readers a story of generosity. Apparently, an entrepreneur was owed $20 million by the State for a nickel subsidy owed to him. The Coordination minister refused since the State's coffers were empty. At the same time, the Defence Minister entered the office and requested that the Economy Minister issue a cheque to get a Greek frigate out of hawk in Bremen. At this point, the entrepreneur told the ministers to use the money owed to him to pay for the Greek frigate "since the frigate is for Greece". The journalist then proceeds to praise the entrepreneur's benevolence and patriotism while insulting the Greek businesspeople of today who, as he says, are "heartless and greedy, they demand more and more from the state without putting their hands in their pockets to help Greece."
I fear that the Greek citizens are being primed for new laws aimed to further tighten the State's chokehold on small businesses because of the actions of a few plutocrats. As a business owner, I am insulted and angered by this man's opinion that we are all heartless and greedy while we pay the wages of other citizens, the health funds and burdensome taxes. We pay our own way in society and strive to contribute something to this country's economic growth. We, like so many other small business owners we know, are struggling to survive in a country whose Draconian tax laws, suffocating bureaucracy and civil servant extortionists conspire against us. The majority of us do not have teams of over-priced lawyers, Swiss bank accounts, luxurious yachts or palatial villas on the French riviera.
All I know is that if most of us "heartless and greedy" businesspeople put our hands into our pockets, all we will retrieve is lint.
When the State paid 1.5 billion€ to rid themselves of feckless OTE employees, the press cheered the decision instead of questioning the financial feasibility of such a hyperinflated payout for parasitic public servants.
When the judiciary was rocked to its very foundations by countless charges of bribery and trial-fixing (Ted Laskaris at Phylax expertly blogged this ongoing sordid saga), the media towed the party line again and applauded Karamanlis for tackling corruption. However, they didn't bother to ask if he even had a backup plan to keep the already creakingly slow justice machinery on top of its caseloads while judges and lawyers alike were being removed as the indictments were handed out.
When the deficit was constantly revised upwards (just do a search for "Greek deficit" and just try to count how many times it was revised), they again, rightly blamed PASOK for incurring such an exorbitant debt but refused to question the inability of New Democracy's Finance Minister to accurately report the magnitude of the debt in his first 3 attempts. He also could not pass the 2006 budget in under 3 attempts. This is also the same man who predicted he would be able to increase State revenue collection by 11% and when he realized he couldn't, he downgraded his original prediction to 5%. When he managed to collect 5.4%, the media praised him for 'exceeding' his revised target instead of lambasting him for having only collected half of his original target.
These unofficial State cheerleaders have gone overboard this time with today's commentary in Kathimerini. The journalist, Nikos Nikolaos goes back 30 years into the archives of his memory to tell his readers a story of generosity. Apparently, an entrepreneur was owed $20 million by the State for a nickel subsidy owed to him. The Coordination minister refused since the State's coffers were empty. At the same time, the Defence Minister entered the office and requested that the Economy Minister issue a cheque to get a Greek frigate out of hawk in Bremen. At this point, the entrepreneur told the ministers to use the money owed to him to pay for the Greek frigate "since the frigate is for Greece". The journalist then proceeds to praise the entrepreneur's benevolence and patriotism while insulting the Greek businesspeople of today who, as he says, are "heartless and greedy, they demand more and more from the state without putting their hands in their pockets to help Greece."
I fear that the Greek citizens are being primed for new laws aimed to further tighten the State's chokehold on small businesses because of the actions of a few plutocrats. As a business owner, I am insulted and angered by this man's opinion that we are all heartless and greedy while we pay the wages of other citizens, the health funds and burdensome taxes. We pay our own way in society and strive to contribute something to this country's economic growth. We, like so many other small business owners we know, are struggling to survive in a country whose Draconian tax laws, suffocating bureaucracy and civil servant extortionists conspire against us. The majority of us do not have teams of over-priced lawyers, Swiss bank accounts, luxurious yachts or palatial villas on the French riviera.
All I know is that if most of us "heartless and greedy" businesspeople put our hands into our pockets, all we will retrieve is lint.
I think Sea's point is that the media need to stop blindly praising ND and actually report and questions their blunders rather than wait a few years until they do reach the same 'dizzying heights' as PASOK.
Sadly, at the end of the day. They are both as bad as each other. It's just 'friends of ND' who are benefiting at the moment rather than 'friends of PASOK'.
As for the article in Kathimerini, all I can say is WTF!!! They must have had too much blank space available prior to publication.
Posted by
Anonymous |
29/1/06 08:43
zardoz says:
WELL illdrink to that , think the barman will take lint,..
Anyways ive been around lately
on the matter that with the bureacracy being what it is,
its good to keep a razor in your back pocket just in case you have to slit your wrists after doing the bureucrat.
I'LL be specific , :
Remember the hollywood movie ALEXANDER ,yeah the great,
well it started to be filmed
in the great valley of larisa
some years back , location people had come , the first stages were being implemented and all the EXTRAS had started coming together
for the producers , thats about ten trucks of movie sets cameras tools
and such and qyite a number of people,thousands id guess,
AND LOW behold the local tax "herr director" comes out of tomb in central LARISA and is asking how
all the bottles of water are paid and croissants and sandwiches for the extras, ... and that he'll have to fine the production for not having declared the money they brought in for expenses and some other gibberish about special permission for filming , (i think he had just thought about that one)
Now were talking millions of dollars in fines and such ,
SO THE PRODUCTION DOES THE NEXT BEST THING, CLEARS OUT.
AND I MEAN EVERYTHING. so there go jobs, investments in local markets,
and publicity about greece's midwest HE-HAWS , .
Then you might ask how was CAPITANO CORRELI'S MANDOLIN done in keffalonia well they arent HEHAW-BANDITS , they were pretty good sports.
LETS LEAVE THE LOCAL POLITICIANS AND HEHAWS,
In trying to talk with the heads of the ministry of culture ,then and now
on the matter i have come to the conclusion that they are eating hallucinatory mushrooms , and think the world revolves around them,
AND THE MEDIA BURIED ALL OF THIS
its not news, but something positive should be appreciated and have its day in the sun,, for the greek people and its tourist economy.
Just the same Seawitch , in elden times kids used to leave home to join the circus carnivals, now they join the media carnivals ,
i certainly cant tell the difference between carnivals
-----------ZASRDOZ
Posted by
Anonymous |
29/1/06 10:15
Holy Sexy Andreas Papendreous!
I have smithed you a fine specimen of poechemitcal pentameter in the honour of your writings on my site
Kind Regards
Posted by
the cloned corpse of marcus tal |
29/1/06 11:38
So much for objective media.
But they seem to do that with everything, not just politics. Aw, ok, you lost your chance for the World Cup? Thats ok, good job! Oh, look, you filed one piece of paperwork and didn't lose it! Too bad you lost ten thousand other pieces of paperwork, but thats ok, good job!
Blech.
Posted by
melusina |
29/1/06 12:12
Let's be honest - in almost ANY country, the press can score points with about 60-65% of the population simply by saying that the others (always a minority) are greedy bastards and all your troubles are because of them. It's called populism and it's as effective as it's ever been. They just sell more newspapers this way.
But ultimately, it becomes a self-fulfilling profecy since in countries where this is the pervasive mentality, the economy stops growing, which is always immediately blamed on the "greedy" class, which results in "worker protection measures", which is turn leads to more job cuts, which in turn... you get the idea. It's a vicious cycle.
Posted by
Anonymous |
29/1/06 14:08
A bad cologne scruffy ?
You insult our devotion to our dehydrated master...
Posted by
Anonymous |
29/1/06 19:17