The Debt

Greece woke up one wintry morning in 2009 to be told the country was in debt.  More than EUR 260 billion in debt.  That corresponded to nearly EUR 30,000 per man, woman and child.  I know someone who had that kind of credit card debt, who withdrew cash from one of a dozen cards to pay off the minimum monthly payment on another card, hoping like the ostrich that the vicious cycle would not catch up with them.  But this was an announcement by the country’s newly elected Prime Minister George Papandreou Jr., the same person who during the election campaign had said the now infamous ‘lefta yparxoun’—'there is money'. 

Now suddenly the state coffers were revealed to be empty, and Greece was beholden to foreign banks who held billions in loans.  It did not take long for Fitch to downgrade Greece's credit rating, with the other agencies following suit.  Every few days headlines announced new lower ratings until Greece slid all the way down to Junk.  Every few days new scenarios were debated by the media pundits: default, leave the Eurozone, return to the Drachma.  Then the IMF were called in for help, and along with the European Commission and the European Central Bank, were dubbed the Troika, which imposed swingeing austerity measures in return for bail-outs.  

I am not an economist, though since the debt crisis was revealed I have read so much that I could probably understand an undergraduate Economics textbook.  Fear not, I will not bore you with this.  If you want to understand the background in a nutshell you can read about it here (BBC) and follow a Guardian timeline  and second Guardian timeline .

My purpose in starting this blog is not to add yet another economic analysis--I will leave that to the experts.  What I hope to do is to put a human face on these statistics: latest figures for May 2013 show nearly 1.4 million unemployed, over one quarter of the overall Greek working population, with nearly two out of three in the 15-24 age group jobless according to Reuters and The Telegraph .  

As I said, I'm not an economist.  So why do I think I have something to say?  Well, although I'm Australian I have lived in Greece for over 30 years--I arrived just weeks after George Papandreou Jr's father Andreas Papandreou swept into power in October 1981 with his PASOK party on the slogan of 'allaghe'--'change'.  I am fluent in Greek.  I've been married to a Greek for 25 years and have a child who goes to a Greek school.  We live in a working-class suburb of Piraeus, and I work near the centre of Athens.  I don't have a car, so I use public transport and walk.  I have seen a great deal of human misery close-up, and I want to give these people a voice.  I know this won't change the Troika's austerity measures, but perhaps someone reading this blog may be moved to help.  You don't need to be in Greece.  Unfortunately there is human suffering everywhere.  Greece is just the example I am personally familiar with, so that is what I will be writing about.