SimonG: But, to be honest, after I read the work benefits of greek state employees before the austerity measires... I mean, really? Some countries have used the Euro as their free piggy bank and lived a lifestyle that their GOP simply couldn't afford.
You probably read a slightly... inflated version of what actually went on (I've found out that when it's about speaking against countries, all national news agencies always do their best), judging by what Wishbone had mentioned a few months earlier.
However I won't deny, that many of the things you read, were true (if not a bit inflated). Here's the truth/issue from my perspective, a devoted enemy of public servants, who has no real reason to lie to you:
It is true that since the 1980's, the most profitable mainstream job in Greece was a state employee. It mainly started because of the permanency - people from the 50's and early 60's had grew up in their villages and under very hard conditions (the civil war was still going strong in people's minds and the country was in turmoil with governments constantly coming and going, the military dictatorship in 1966 was the last nail in the coffin) and suddenly found permanent, adequately paying jobs in offices and all kinds of organizations. It wasn't really hard for the post-junta governments (the few families that have plagued Greek politics since 1974 at least) to pick up the (job) hunger of the Greek populace and use it to be elected - people suddenly wouldn't care to lick a politician's ass if they could find a steady, well-paying job. In the mid-80's the socialist party started borrowing money as soon as they won the elections, and funded their way in people's minds as a great, people-loving government.
In a sense, the Greek people never really managed to mature politically - and it's a pretty long and lengthy process. It's like taking a child deprived of candy from a poor environment and putting it in a rich house - in a few years, it will be asking for the most expensive candy in the world, and will consider the posession and enjoyment of this candy, his right.
This situation continued during the 90's. I remember that back in 2005 when I was finishing school, a lot of my co-pupils were dreaming of becoming public servants. The permanency was their main point ("I won't have to study something crappy and search for a job, I'll be instantly employed by the state"), the salary was also quite good (1100 or 1200 euros for starters, and it kept rising with promotions and years in service, to amounts such as 2500 or 3000 euros), and there was also something else: In the 90's the concept of the "public servant" had degenerated in people's minds to the person that works from 8:00 to 14:00 every day, does not work at all and get away with it, and earns an insane amount of money doing nothing - or at least working under very relaxed conditions. It was pretty much the ideal job. Allow me to say however, that I've been living in Scotland since September and it's not really that much different to what a public servant or an academic (also considered a public servant in Greece, as Universities are state-funded) does here as well - which is weird, and goes to show how national news agencies do their best when talking about other countries.
Back to Greece now: The culmination of these reforms in the 80's was the appearance of a state corruption, unlike any other I've ever met or read about - politics is a shady business, but in Greece, it became even shadier. Companies from many European countries (Siemens for example) payed vast amounts to intermediate Greek state officials and presidents of state organizations, and all kinds of other middlemen to take up certain state constructions and projects that would give them even higher benefits. Countries (like yours for example) signed weapon agreements with the Greek governments (ending up in a weird arms race between Greece and Turkey, as if the third WW would start in the Aegean) and Greece ended up paying huge amounts of state money (tax money in effect) in arms (and even faulted ones, like the so-called "dipping submarines" we bought from Germany) in exchange for various political and economical aiding (more loans).
It's also important to remember that civil servants were only a fraction of the population. Obviously. The majority still worked and bled for insane amounts of time (I heard about the 1 hour "lunch break" as a custom here in the UK, in Greece people in the public sector ate while they worked :-/), and for pretty normal amounts of money - even back in 2004, before the mess started appearing, the average daily salary was about 45 euros (x 25 = 1125 euros per month). It's just that, back then prices were quite cheap, and everyone could
work and live. It wasn't weird for a freelancer at a mature age, to even have enough money after 20 years of work, to build their own house and get away from rent.
Good examples of this majority are my parents: My father was a freelance tilelayer, worked since he was 12 years old and finally made it to his retirement last August at the age of 60, to earn a measly 862 euros which has shrank to 818 and keeps shrinking while goods' prices and taxes are going up, while my mother was working from 15 y.o. in factories, opened up her own small town store/newsagents at the age of 30 and retired at 57 earning herselt the amazing amount of 678 euros which has shrank to 625, and which keeps shrinking. Unless people are really bothered by the age my parents managed to retire, they will notice the age they started working (yes, underaged) and what they currently earn - unlike similar aged people in the West who started retiring at 65 and end up "rich" (their word, at least here in the UK), their Greek counterparts retire at 60 and will never become rich with what they will be earning.
Civil servants had it somewhat better off than the general population as far as taxation went (they were receiving a bit lowered salary during their years of service and were given back this percentage when they retired, an amount that could even reach 70k euros in rare, well-payed positions), but in general, they were just a percentage of the population.
Please try to bear in mind that for the poor state of the Greek finances, it's not mainly the population to be blamed. Since when is the salary of people
the only reason a country goes broke? I am an enemy of civil servants and never once wanted to become one or even tried to be (although I spent 9 months of civil service in the army, which was mandatory), but not because of what they earned, but because of the mentality which affected pretty much everyone born after 1980 and degenerated them into deadbrains that wanted to get a country job and earn money.
I know what I said may not be enough to change your opinions even by a slightly bit - when someone is bombarded daily by newsreels about "bad wealthy Greeks/Poles/Spaniards/Italians/Portuguese/whatever who want to destroy the euro and our country, even though we keep dropping trunkloads of money in these black hole countries", it's easy to be affected and just blame the tip of the iceberg, which in this case, are the Greek civil servants. Yes, they are to blame, they are a part of the iceberg, but they are only the tip - and you know how icebergs are fucking big underneath the sea's surface.
The people yesterday voted and it was a weird decision. It doesn't lead anywhere and we'll have another election, possibly in the summer. The 3 old political parties (right wing, socialists, leftists) have started breaking up into other parties by new people and the results are weird - the extreme right, traditionally earning 0.4% managed to gather a whopping 6.97%. What's apparent is that the people finally want to punish the culprits who took them into this mess. I don't know if they can. If you ask me, I doubt it. As I said, the country hasn't matured politically - I hope I am wrong.
As for the actual current stance in Greece: People are divided. Some say it's best to keep up the austerity measures (I think so too, but I don't plan to return soon, so what I think is irrelevant), others say that's enough is enough, let's leave the europeans to their machinations, let them find another guinea pig and let's try to survive on our own but proudly, not giving land and water to them. Yesterday's elections show that many people start understanding it's about the latter, survival, and voted for the new parties that oppose the austerity measures, but we'll have to wait and see.
The count has ended, you can see the results here:
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First: New Democracy, one of the three old parties, pro-IMF: 18.85%
Second: Syriza, mid-hardcore leftists, anti-IMF, 16.78%
Third: Pasok, socialists, second of the three old parties, pro-IMF, 13.18%
Fourth: Independent Hellenes, new party, first elections, first time in the parliament, anti-IMF, 10.60%
Fifth: Communist Party, third old party, anti-IMF & EU, 8.48%
Sixth: Golden Dawn, extreme national socialists, first ever time in the Parliament, anti-IMF & EU, 6.97%
Seventh: Democratic Left, mid-hardcore leftists, first elections, first ever time in the Parliament, 6.11%
The rest are parties that do not make it to the Parliament. Abstinence was 35%. Yes, 35%.
A coalition is inevitable because for a party to rule, they need to have 42% of the votes. You can understand how the old parties were hurt, if you consider that in past elections, they all managed to gather this 42% on their own.
