E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS"We don't have money...Now our only target is to have food to survive," Greek shopkeeper Michael Ipermahos says about the gravity of the financial crisis. "My advice to my children is to leave Greece, throw away their Greek passports and be a citizen of another country."
ATHENS – Shock was a common sentiment in the heart of Athens this week.
Athinas Street, the colorful shopping mile in the Greek capital, is known for its lively fish and meat markets, where spice salesmen mix with traditional shoemakers and sidewalks are packed with commodities for sale.
But at one corner earlier this week shoppers and residents stopped to look at the ugly face of growing public anger in the Greek crisis.
Workers were removing broken glass, burnt wood and other rubble from the Bank of Cyprus building, one of at least 48 Athens buildings that were torched by protesters during riots two days earlier.
Two blocks up the road, 50-year-old Michael Ipermahos stood outside his small clothing store and looked on in despair.
"Once, we were proud to be Greeks. Now, I am ashamed. Ashamed not of myself, but of the Greek politicians and what they have done to this country," he said.
'Work, work, work'
Ipermahos said he has been to several of the public demonstrations outside of the Greek parliament in the past months to peacefully protest the harsh austerity measures and to voice his anger over what he calls "injustice.“
"I work, work, work, day and night, 16 hours every day, sometimes in temperatures below freezing, sometimes in brutal heat," said Ipermahos, a father of two children – ages 20 and 23 – who still live at home with him and his wife.
"We are not lazy," he said. "But while my income is shrinking, the taxes are going up, fuel prices are skyrocketing and even basic food is becoming more expensive."
On this cool morning, only a few people stopped to look at the tee-shirts, jackets and other garments that Ipermahos sells.
But he does have one item that sells briskly.
"Gas masks," Ipermahos said, as he pointed to the prominently displayed protection gear.
"Because tear gas is regularly used at the protests, we now also offer gas masks. It is one of our best selling products," he said.
But it may not be enough, over the course of the past two and a half years, Ipermahos said the little shop that he owns with his brother-in-law has seen a 60 percent decline in business.
Courtesy Chris Manolitsis
Chris Manolitsis, a 52-year-old freelance sound engineer, is feeling the crunch of the Greek economic crisis.
And, hope for a better future is fading.
"It is almost certain that we will lose our jobs; we are only counting the days,“ he said.
Armed robbers steal 70 relics from museum in Olympia, Greece
Tightening the belt
Of course, it’s not just retail businesses that are feeling the crunch in Greece.
Chris Manolitsis, a 52-year-old freelance sound engineer who has been working with Greek artists for over 30 years, said he had been struggling ever since the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers in New York.
"The Greek music industry has generally deteriorated because people do not have the money to go out to nightclubs or events anymore, one of the first things everybody saves on is entertainment," he explained.
In recent years, the father of two grown-up children had to cope with a 50 to 60 percent reduction in his income, though he still feels somewhat financially independent because he has been receiving money from other sources, including rent from a house that he bought in better economic times.
However, his alternative income sources are far from secure.
"The woman who is renting my house is a civil servant who had her salary already cut three times and she is now facing a fourth cut," Manolitsis said. "I agreed to reduce her rent by 20 percent, otherwise the mother of a young child would have moved out and I would have been left with more uncertainty.“
And his 27-year-old son Terry, who finished college with a degree in media and communications, was recently fired from a job as a security guard, the only employment he could find after finishing his studies. As a result, the young man left for Scotland, looking for job opportunities outside Greece.
In Greece, the crisis is making people ill (literally)
Broken promises
Manolitsis blames the current financial crisis on two decades of financial mismanagement, which has resulted in broad public anger and deeply rooted mistrust towards politicians.
"Greeks had the wool pulled over their eyes, so to speak," he said.
"When former Prime Minister Papandreou won the elections in 2009, for example, he received overwhelming support on a platform that there is plenty of money," he said. "Two days later, the politicians said sorry, we made a mistake, there is no money.“
Today, most Greeks feel that they have been pushed to the limits, leading to growing despair and rising suicide rates.
"The situation is a tragedy and a shame for a nation with such a powerful heritage," Manolitsis said. "Of course I am worried about my future, but we have to keep going and I am not afraid to get my hands dirty or explore new routes."
Next week, the Greek sound engineer has signed up for a training seminar, which will teach him how to sell insurance.
Leave a Comment:
This story applies to millions of working Americans. NBC news should devote more resources to reporting on the real state of the Union, instead of chasing the clown parade batmobiling in the "Electoral Wasteland," where, as Timothy Egan writes in today's New York Times, "three million voters have participated in the Republican races, less than the population of Connecticut. This means that 89 percent of all registered voters in those states have not participated." And those who did are almost all white, evangelical Christians.
"...66% of voters support the federal requirement that private health care plans cover the full cost of birth control for female patients (26% don’t). Among women, support is 72-20...Other polls show a huge majority of Americans want to raise taxes on the rich, favor the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan and believe the earth is warming because of human action."
Now, do the math and report accordingly.
The IMF is very brazen in its fear mongering that we have lost a decade economically. Especially since the IMF has been one of the biggest contributors to perpetuating the instability of the European crisis. The dominoes are beginning to fall in what is an orchestrated attempt by the banksters to consolidate Europe and eventually the rest of the world’s economies under one umbrella that is to be controlled by those that have always controlled currency and money. The most egregious aspect of this contrived extortion is that they are blaming the people who are the backbone of any economy instead of their greedy corrupt political and business leaders.
George Papandreou was pressured to quit because he lapsed into a morally and ethical responsible position by trying to give the people of Greece a say in their economic future through a referendum. This vote would have given the Greek people the choice to stay in the Euro zone and allow their country to be foreclosed upon by the banksters or leave the Euro regain their sovereignty and coin their own currency once again. The IMF bullied the smallest country as a litmus test for what is going to be a much more challenging foreclosure process when it comes to the larger economies. This dilemma you are watching unfold goes to the core of the rotten apple that is the world’s financial system.
Folks, you are witnessing the death throes of a corrupt financial system where the stock markets and the fractional reserve banking system are at its core. The volatility in the stock markets are a microcosm of the greed, theft and corruption that has perpetrated all aspects of our and other countries economic systems. In the United States, It doesn’t matter who’s in office. Our political system has turned into a two headed one party system with both parties serving their masters, Wall Street and the banksters/Federal Reserve. The stock market is just another ponzi scheme whose intent is to fleece the gullible at the bottom of the pyramid. The stock market is a rouge element of a financial system that is meant to funnel the wealth to the elite/banksters who soicopathically control our financial lives. It is reaching a point where there is nothing to take anymore from the 99% of the world. The banksters would separate you from your rainy day fund if they could gain access to your shoe box or secret compartment in your purse or wallet. The stock market isn’t the main problem; it’s the fractional reserve banking system that has set the foundation for outright theft. We are experiencing the biggest bank and investment robbery in history and the banks and financial institutions are doing the robbing. When you blame one political party or another they have you right where they want you, in fear, divided and distracted to the theft that is going on right in front of your eyes each and every second of the day.
When you have people on Wall Street day trading and speculating making half a million dollars a year in their twenties betting on people being foreclosed on, you need to ask yourself what is the true purpose of our banking system? At the moment it is largely a theft on the American public. MF Global and Corzine knows this and knows that nobody with his connections have served any time for stealing the investor’s money (1.6 billion as last count). The financial system’s main mission should be to allocate capital to areas of greatest growth in the real world economy. Yet they allow all kinds of broker speculation and financial gimmicks such as the derivative markets which are based on non-realistic side bets which are now in the quadrillions. The derivatives market was illegal for most of the 20th century.
The European banking crisis is a prime example of what is going to happen to all economies associated with stock market fraud and the Federal Reserve banking system. The financial strife in Greece is the model that will befall most countries. Greece is but a symptom of a cancer that has attached itself to the world’s economies. The Federal Reserve (which is neither federal nor a reserve) has been creating money (monopoly money) out of thin air and charging interest on it insuring a debtor economy for anyone who chooses or is forced to get involved with the Federal Reserve and their fractional reserve banking system. That is why this whole European or any countries current debt crisis will never be resolved and will be preyed upon by the stock market vultures. The Federal Reserve System is designed to cause economies to fail.
If someone loans you two dollars to run your economy and expects three back for the loan and interest how are you going to pay the third back? You can’t unless you borrow more dollars which puts you in perpetual debt and in a constant borrowing cycle to pay off the debt. This is designed not accidental.
Here’s the kicker, once the Federal Reserve/banksters have you struggling to pay off your interest, they send in their loan sharks the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF will loan you money to cover your ever burdening interest payments but they attach a provision that if you default, you will have to give them your assets in what they call privatization (foreclosure).
Since the interest is exponential, you will default and the banksters will come in and try to foreclose on your country, like Greece. They are being told to sell off their own country to pay back the people who caused the mess to begin with. This allows the elite to steal your intrinsic valuable assets because they gave you paper (loans/debt) and the interest on the debt that is systematically impossible to pay back. This also allows the parasitic stock speculators to profit from this designed theft. They not only know the outcome of an economy, they can gamble on the economic bubbles at the investor’s expense. This cancer goes all the way down the food chain.
In the United States case, it doesn’t have to be that way. In our constitution, in Article 1, Section 8, it stipulates that we can “coin money” as a nation and avoid the Federal Reserve’s interest (fee charged on loans) black hole.
So don’t be fooled that the Europeans have come to grips with their financial debt, it’s impossible, it’s a virus that has spread around the globe. Hopefully the Greek people will get their referendum so the Peter Principal will kick in for the Federal Reserve. The stock market vultures will continue to contrive “financial instruments” (credit default swaps/credit derivatives) to defraud the people of the world.
Banks, Central banks, IMF = Federal Reserve = Debtor economies, Debtor Nations (economic slaves) and carrion for the stock market derivative heist.
I fully agree with you, I also think the big banks should have fallen in 08 rather than be bailed out.
you do understand that if you asked americans "Would you support receiving $10,000 per person in your household as cash each year from the federal government" a majority of people would say yes? Funny enough, all the european countries which are in the process of crashing and burning have very progressive tax rates, as well as government supplied health care, low retirement ages etc? You can't fund those things out of thin air, and as you raise taxes on individuals and corporations further and further to try to what you mostly accomplish is stifling growth, which makes those same programs harder and harder to fund.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Sure go ahead raise the taxes on the rich.
Info for you, the last quarter of 2009 saw more than double the number of people cede their citizenship and leave the USA, than in all of 2008.
The rich and business have been leaving the USA in a small steady stream.
I would really like like to know what kind of logic allows you to think, that business and the "rich", will just stay here and pay more in taxes and fees every year to fund the freebies.
If you lived on the west side of the street and could save yourself a lot of money, by moving, to the East side, wouldn't you?
This is a lot of Greece's problem.
The dems won't belive that, they will continue on until we look like Greece.
Their problem, the 2nd Amendment, you start the rioting and burning here chances are good it will get you killed.
Sure go ahead raise the taxes on the rich.
Info for you, the last quarter of 2009 saw more than double the number of people cede their citizenship and leave the USA, than in all of 2008.
The rich and business have been leaving the USA in a small steady stream.
I would really like like to know what kind of logic allows you to think, that business and the "rich", will just stay here and pay more in taxes and fees every year to fund the freebies.
If you lived on the west side of the street and could save yourself a lot of money, by moving, to the East side, wouldn't you?
This is a lot of Greece's problem.
The dems won't belive that, they will continue on until we look like Greece.
Their problem, the 2nd Amendment, you start the rioting and burning here chances are good it will get you killed.
First the rich, The hated 1% pay 80% of the taxes. THat sounds like good bit more than the 99%. zif you want to raise taxes raise taxes on everyone not just the rich.
Do they have to pay a tax when they buy a mask?
They have to pay a 100% tax directly to Angela Merkel and Bernanke.
Lies. The Greeks don't pay any taxes.
I heard AK's, MRE's, and cardboard boxes were also hot sellers.
If things don't change here pretty soon, they will be substituting the United States for Greece, but it will be the same story.
Tax the wealthy, give me a break. The more money Washington gets the more they are going to spend. They are not going to pay down a damn thing.
With the current administration - what you say is sad, but true.....sigh......
This is what happens when big banks are allowed to get away with bankrupting governments by selling fake financial products. Now these same banks are being allowed to illegally foreclose on people who were never in foreclosure in the first place.
Isn't it interesting that I'm getting 1/100% interest on my savings acct at Chase Bank (that's 4 pennies for $4,000 savings acct). But my Chase Visa Credit Card charges me 19% interest! (I pay it off each month to avoid this criminal "loan sharking")
How can our banks justify such inequality? I might as well put my savings into my mattress!
Why are you still banking with Chase?
My exact thought........
All this time I thought Greece's largest export was sodomy......
yes...your mother and father kept cutting in line...
Well if they started manufacturing gas masks in Greece they'd at least get some people working.
Greece is a perfect example of a country that figured out it could vote itself largesse from the public treasury.
Greece say hello to Alexis De Tocqueville
Too bad so sad.....
Wake up America, we are next.
The crybabies brought it on themselves.
really ? and whats our excuse for our mess ?
Gas masks are easy to make. Instructions on the net...
Greece is an example of a business community that allows too many people to become unemployed. Greeces poblem is JOBS.
There are no jobs in Greece that people wont take. They are on social programs because of a lack of jobs. Poor people with no resources cannot just magically create a job for themselves.
It is up to the business community to create employment, or you end up like Greece. Same thing will happen in the US unless the business community starts creating jobs, and stops outsourcing them. Good jobs, not McJobs..
omg...please stop ! all of you !
this is a small country that exports olives, olive oil and cheese..oh and pitas for the most part.
Italy is next..wait and see..and they lead in over priced fashion exports, over priced cars., tons of Italian foods....whats their excuse ? Spain and Portugal too...right around the corner..
So, does it sound fair that a power country like Germany is equal to Greece, Spain and Portugal? of course not !
oh and of course our country... America...whats our excuse? SO BEFORE A LOT YOU MAKE YOURSELVES LOOK AND SOUND MORE STUPID...MIND UR OWN..AND FIX OURSELVES 1ST.
GREECE WILL PREVAIL..THEY ALWAYS DO...ITS HISTORY...
For the entire span of recorded history, we have seen the quasi socialists/socialists/communists try to run countries.
Every single time, we have watched them go down the tube, usually, when the "producers" just give up and go elsewhere.
Still, every time an Obama comes along, the free lunchers jump on the band wagon.
Nope, still no such thing as a free lunch.
That is being presented to the Greeks, in a way, they can't ignore.
Go ahead burn the whole country, and when it's burned down, you will still be broke.
The rule of law must stand. GREEK politcians ought to be rounded up and arrested on charges of..........
Corruption, Running a criminal enterprise as a gang, Stealing and Crimes against its own people
Any questions?
Quote "I would really like like to know what kind of logic allows you to think, that business and the "rich", will just stay here and pay more in taxes and fees every year to fund the freebies"
The poor little rich people that so many are concerned with got that way by shipping jobs over seas and then importing back finished products to sell to those receiving the freebies. Dont feel too sorry for them as whatever the tax rate on these "rich" they've insured they'll pay a lower rate then the middle class by buying politicians who create special exemptions just for them. People like to note we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world at 38% but never bother to follow that the average corporation pays a 12% rate one of the lowest in the world.
I here I thought the only hot seller in Greece was sheep..
Obama talks about wealth redistribution, but every dollar we borrow puts another dollar in the hands of the rich and or foreign. Just look at who is suffering in Greece. It's the middle and lower classes that are suffering because the government borrowed beyond its means and now the middle class is screwed.
Look Greece
it's the same all over especially for people that feel entitled and lived for spending the last penny.
Do you think others have been living as good as you did for past many years.
Get used to it.