couple of years ago, I shared a chart that powerfully demonstrated why Greece was in fiscal crisis.
The chart, which showed the explosive growth of the government bureaucracy, also provided some indication of why reform would be so difficult.
Once a majority of a country’s voting-age population is riding in the wagon of government dependency, it is very difficult to build political support for reform.
Now I have another story that perfectly symbolizes Greece’s dysfunctional situation.
It involves the Greek equivalent of a mooching Big Bird-style state-run media. Let’s start with an excerpt from the UK-based Independent.
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras faces a political revolt after pulling the plug on the country’s state broadcaster in the middle of the night. News presenters were cut off mid-sentence when Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), the 75-year-old state television station, was dragged off-air just hours after the decision was announced, in what the government described as a temporary measure to stem the flow of wasted taxpayers’ money into a channel plagued by “excesses”. …In announcing the reasons for the move, Mr Kedikoglou listed a catalogue of ERT’s excesses, which include three orchestras paid as civil servants and 19 provincial radio stations which broadcast only four hours of original programmes each day.
What’s remarkable is that the government isn’t even proposing to get rid of handouts. They just want to reduce the amount of money spent on government media, which is financed by money involuntarily extracted from consumers via their electricity bills.
Here’s what a local English-language news source reported.
Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou argued that ERT had become bloated and needed to be overhauled but PASOK and Democratic Left said they had not given their consent for it to be shut down. Kedikoglou said the new broadcaster would have an annual budget of 100 million euros, rather than the 300 million ERT currently gets from license fees levied via electricity bills.
But maybe there is hope for Greece. Some people (perhaps like the long-suffering tax slaves I wrote about two years ago) are fed up with overpaid government officials.
Here’s an excerpt from the BBC about the private sector’s non-response to a strike called by a “communist-backed labour group”.
City streets have been as full as usual with commuters and car traffic. Supermarkets have been open for business and cafes serving customers as usual. ”The lowest ERT employee is making in a day what I’m making in a week, so why should I strike for them?” vegetable-seller Yannis Papailias told Reuters news agency in Athens. ”Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs. Who protested for them?” asked waitress Maria Skylakou. Unions representing about 2.5 million workers have repeatedly gone on strike in Greece since Europe’s debt crisis erupted in late 2009, although action has been less frequent and more muted lately than last year when marches frequently turned violent. Corruption and mismanagement are widely known to exist within ERT, a public company symptomatic of Greece’s past mistakes.
Wow, the bureaucrats make in a day what someone in the private sector makes in a week. Even if that number is exaggerated by 50 percent, that’s still a remarkable indication of how government in Greece has become a racket for entrenched bureaucrats and interest groups.
And we thought it was bad that federal bureaucrats in the United States got twice as much compensation as people in the economy’s productive sector!
P.S. Don’t let anyone tell you Greece has made “too many” budget cuts. The government in Athens is infamous for being insanely wasteful, even to the point of subsidizing pedophiles and requiring stool samples from folks applying to set up online companies.
