Had it not been for the daily undoing of the Greek economy and the pauperization of the majority of the Greek people, I would follow the “efforts” of SYRIZA-ANEL almost with sympathy. Their “work” is more heartbreaking than that of Sisyphus. They try to push to the summit of Mount Recovery the enormous rock of the third Agreement (the one which they would have repealed with their first Act in 2015): A hopeless task for people that have never worked in their life.
This is not the only oxymoron. The Don Quixotes of the Greek Left whip dead the horse of the economy, with new taxes, in the hope that it may defeat the mythical land of Tax-evasion Capture. But at the same time they bridle it hard left towards the Sodom and Gomorra of government appointments and other power spoils.
Add to the story the established fact that the people that govern us, are typical examples of personalities split, between their easy life, as offsprings of well-off families or as trade union leaders and agitators, and their communist fixations on the other; and you may understand why Greeks have not the slightest chance of seeing an end to their present predicament.
The analysis is crude in its simplicity: Tsipras and his spokespersons accept that the economy may recover, only if we have foreign investments. They tour Russia and China to solicit them. But the majority of Government mebers openly fight investment in public enterprises and/or real estate, as a “sale-away” of precious public property.
They stage long repetitive strikes, against privatisations – for example in mass transport – hindering even the few working people that have remained, to go to work. Mr. Tsipras found this a “natural expression of dissatisfaction” in his response to the Chinese Prime-Minister. His Ministers pass the necessary legislation perforce and “in tears” as they state, trying all sorts of tricky delays or even undermining the privatisations that they themselves have legislated.
Unable to grasp the Minotaur of tax-evasion by the horns, they slap on new taxes beyond the paying capacity of pensioners, working people and businesses. The impact is obvious: more tax evasion by those that can do it, i.e. all except pensioners and salaried workers. The closing down of businesses, which up to now was limited to small and medium enterprises, now spreads to large commercial concerns with tens of thousands of people losing their one and only job.
Even tourism is not booming as last year, as an almost doubling of the VAT rate was slapped on all Aegean Islands, many of them already hit by the fear of tourists for the refugee hotspots that operate on them. According to the reputable daily “Kathimerini” more than 80% of income tax returns, last year, were for a monthly income of under 968 euros.
To sum it all up: The Government create strong incentives, not for new investment, but for the proliferation of tax evasion. The economy, under the “first ever Government of the Left”, as they call themselves with pride, is not even allowed to reap the competitive advantage of the income cuts that were imposed, with such sacrifice, on workers and pensioners. Capital controls ensure that credit is not available even for exporters. It all ends up in the third and by far greatest emigration wave we have had in our post-war history. Only now it is not farmers that emigrate, but the most educated, dynamic youth. The Government, imitating Erdogan, is trying to control and eliminate the media, which do not project its “achievements”.
A famous Greek novel of the past was named “A chance for Hope”. But, there is no hope in the present Government, who is trying to change the electoral system, so that the Opposition may not rule, even if it comes out victorious in the next elections. It is a great pity for a young man like Tsipras and an even greater misfortune for the Greek people that the “first ever Government of the Left” proves, not only incapable of running the Country, but deeply immoral and un-democratic.