And now the blood seeps up through stones beneath the Acropolis

The Greeks think they have been through hard times but, to paraphrase, 'they ain't seen nuttin' yet!'  Sky News is running a disturbing story today from Athens where a charity, set up 20 years ago by a businessman who lost his young son to cancer, is facing the all too real prospect of shutting its doors because donations have virtually disappeared in the deep freeze of austerity.  This particular charity takes in abandoned babies and the number of those is increasing as impoverished parents find themselves unable to cover the cost of extra children.  Most babies are simply abandoned but some are rescued from 'homes' where the parents in their despair have given up and resorted to drugs or alcohol.

But there is even worse news for Greece.  I read somewhere, sorry, I forget where, that huge numbers of Greek businesses have been leaving the country as fast as they can and setting up in neighbouring countries.  These, of course, are the very entities upon which Greece would have depended upon for any chance of a recovery.  So as the EU apparatchiks play their silly financial games with Monopoly money by lending to Greece so that Greece can repay its loans to them, then Greece as a separate, independent entity will cease to exist which is what the Euro-fanatics want and if the abandoned children of Greece die, well, what was it that guy said about omelettes and eggs?

 

Comments

[Cuffleyburgers]

No doubt the EU plans to sell the abandoned babies to adoptive parents in Germany and elsewhere and use the proceeds to pay back Deutschebank... terribly sad story.

The second part is also true, it is a process called Hysteresis (from the Greek for "Fuck off you Nazi bastards"), and as you say, after 5 years of this the damage is likely to be long term.

The only young Greeks in work will be those in London. It will take a generation to recover.

Always worth looking out for articles by AEP in the Barclay Brothers' Beano - one of the few parts of the paper worth reading. He's been good on the Greek crisis all the way through, and has been pointing to Hysteresis from the start.

[Whitewall]

Ugly business. No amount of austerity will work for them. They need to do the Grexit, take their medicine with the reintroduction of the drachma and let global markets set the value of things. As of now, there is little if any economic foundation.

[JK]

"I read somewhere, sorry, I forget where, that huge numbers of Greek businesses have been leaving the country as fast as they can and setting up in neighbouring countries."

http://warontherocks.com/2015/07/russia-greece-and-the-eu-a-putin-shaped-shark-in-the-mediterranean/

[backofanenvelope]

Just to add to their general misery, about 2000 Arabs and/or Africans land on their shores every day. They ought to give them travel documents and buy them a rail ticket to somewhere nice - Munich say, or Berlin

[Spinny]

'I read somewhere, sorry, I forget where, that huge numbers of Greek businesses have been leaving the country as fast as they can and setting up in neighbouring countries.'

This is one that I came across:

http://www.novinite.com/articles/169962/Greek+Firms+Seeking+to+Move+to+Bulgaria+Due+to+Capital+Controls%2C+Trade+Group+Says

[FrankC]

That charity sounds like a good place for our overseas aid.

Will those Greek companies return to Greece if Bulgaria insists on them paying their full tax bill?

[David Duff]

Thanks, Spinny.

A far better place, Frank, than some African dictator's back pocket!