April 21, 2011
Georgios Kakaboukis, 87, has survived the Nazi occupation of Greece, a civil war, a military coup and martial law. He can deal with Prime Minister George Papandreou cutting his Easter holiday pension bonus.
“Some people, these younger ones, haven’t lost anything at all,” said Kakaboukis, a retired civil servant, while waiting in line to see his doctor at the state welfare office in the Athens suburb of Neos Kosmos. “Greeks have learned to yell, raising their fists in protest while the other hand is stretched out for handouts.”
It’s been almost a year since Papandreou traveled to the remote island of Kastelorizo on April 23 to tell Greeks they needed to grab the financial lifeline from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. Evoking Homer’s Odyssey, the Socialist premier said he had “charted the waters” and “knows the way to Ithaca,” the home of the mythological hero Odysseus.
Greeks are realizing that the journey to financial health is only just beginning. A year of spending cuts and tax increases has failed to tame the euro-region’s second-largest deficit and the government is pushing for more austerity. Record bond yields signal investors’ bets that Greece will capitulate and restructure a debt forecast to peak at 159 percent of gross domestic product next year.
With unemployment set to exceed 15 percent this year, and the country’s central bank saying the economy may shrink more than its 3 percent forecast, the third year of contraction, Greeks are girding for more losses. Last week, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou announced cuts covering the next five years, targeting schools, hospitals, and public transit.
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