Is the EU the Pig in the Greek Animal Farm Tragedy?

During a visit of French President Hollande to Athens, Greek President Karolos Papoulias gave a stark warning about the state of the country after three grinding years of government spending cuts, joblessness and tax hikes. He warned that Greece will explode if any more pressure is put on society. Not only are Greece's 1.35 million unemployed unable to make ends meet, but a growing number of those still employed are struggling to feed, heat and clothe themselves - and pay the increasingly hefty taxes the government is relying on to turn the economy around. And GSEE, Greece's largest labor union, warns that the labor force - which includes a large public sector - has been too badly weakened to help the battered country recover. Since 2010, when Greece ceased to be able to borrow funds needed to operate, it has been receiving handouts from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. But to receive these loans, Athens has had to agree to harsh spending cuts and tax hikes to try to lower public debt. These measures, however, have also torpedoed Greece's economy, now trapped in a five-year recession. Greece now has the highest unemployment rate in the 17-country Eurozone, with 27% out of work - 60% of those aged under 24. The EU has also insisted on a strict one-year limit on unemployment benefits. Compounding the problem is the fact that more than half of Greeks who actually have jobs in the private sector no longer receive regular pay. Adding to these problems are the large increases in taxes that Greeks have to pay. Large tax increases are common, but the rapidly shrinking tax base, i.e., the Greeks who still have jobs, means that the government is collecting fewer and fewer taxes, making it impossible to repay the EU and the IMF, and now threatening to make it impossible to pay those Greeks still working in the public sector or to pay pensioners. According to the GSEE, 3.6 million people out of a population of 11 million are working, with 1.6 million employed by private-sector companies - that's down from around 2.5 million before the 2010 crisis. A million workers have had their hours cut or are getting paid as much as four or five months late. "They are in a state of desperation," says the GSEE, reporting that unemployed people may soon not have enough money left to pay taxes while covering their basic needs. That would be the worst possible outcome for the Greek economy and Greek society. Early signs from 2013, suggest high taxes may be backfiring: January revenues sank by €572 million ($765 million) from last year's figure to €4.42 billion ($5.91 billion), despite a raft of additional demands on tax payers. ~~~~~ What is most depressing about the desperate Greek situation, dear readers, is that the European media and EU leadership don't mention it. It is as if Greece had disappeared from the world map. When we remember that it was the EU and the Euro that have caused Greece's near-death -- first, by accepting an unqualified country into the Eurozone to boost Eurozone size; second, by not monitoring Greece more closely to reveal its real fiscal status; third, by forcing Greece down a debtor path that makes no sense even to non-professionals because it curtailed economic activity at the very moment when Greece needed that activity most; and finally, by ignoring the Greek people's current urgent cries for relief from the EU's austerity program. But, it may be too late to save Greece in the mid- or even longer term. Her economy is tattered. Her people are in despair. Her young are fleeing to any country where they can go to university or get a job. It reminds me of the final scene in George Orwell's "Animal Farm" - the starving and overworked little farm animals are staring into the dining room where their leaders, who had promised freedom and plenty but instead destroyed their lives, are enjoying a banquet. The leaders, all pigs, are fat and happy while their people starve. In the distance a beloved horse is being carted off to the glue factory because he is too old to work. European leaders should be ashamed. They are not. And why am I not surprised? Because in the final analysis, the vast majority of socialist/leftist political leaders, and even some conservatives, look out only for themselves. They do not care what havoc they leave behind them. Greece is the perfect contemporary example.