Greek auto destruction

The info coming out of Greece concerning cheating with public funds are hilarious in a morbid way.  Greece will soon default.  Here I present some of the tragic-comic examples:

An ex police officer has invented 19 children with pictures and everything.  He has as a minimum managed to get 150,000 euros from the state in child subsidies.  But probably more.  He was arrested when waiting to pick up another 8,000 euros.  The man is 54 and has being working his scheme since 1996.  He quit as a police officer in 2001.

The case is extreme but not unique.  A farmer on a small island, claiming a lot of children and extreme poverty, had a Ferrari and a Porsche in his garage.



Hat tip: El Mundo:

This "garden" in front of a public hospital in Athens consists of 4 small "trees".  No less than 45 gardeners are hired to take care of them.  I wonder if they polish all the leaves every day?

Unmarried daughters of passed away public servants receive a lifelong pension.  There are 40,000 such daughters.  I believe they probably will not marry any time soon...

One public department has 50 drivers for one car.  That must be a sight to behold.

The Greek hospitals give their patients pacemakers 400 times more expensive than in the U.K.  I bet the pacemaker supplier is laughing all the way to the bank.

There is a public institute to take care of a lake: The "Institute for the protection of lake Kopais".  A small detail.  The lake has been dried out since 1930.

One out of 4 Greeks never have paid any tax.

Six hundred professions in Greece can retire early because of strenuous jobs.  Men at 55 and women at 50.   Hairdressers, musicians and television presenters are all included.


From other sources:


There is the example of an island of 35,000 people with 750 people receiving their pension for being blind.  We see this year that suddenly an additional 32000 more people have died than usually when the Greek state for the first time asked them to prove they were alive.  Thirty something thousand dead/alive people are still missing.  In fact Greece is the country in Europe, according to statistics, with most people alive above 100 years old.  

Tax evasion is everywhere - "Only the stupid pay tax,” one eye surgeon told a Greek state radio.  Eye surgeons are members of a profession earning up to 900,000 euros a year.

There’s now a burgeoning market in camouflage swimming-pool covers, as the tax man is flying in helicopters above Greek villas trying to determine who lives above their declared income.




And some people in Portugal question the legitimacy of countries such as Germany and international organisations such as IMF that demand more control of Southern Europe?  Conditions in Portugal, Spain and Italy are not quite Greek but they are not far off either...