There is never a single side to any argument as stats guru Krzysztok Wojciechowicz reminds us with this thoughtful contribution. The Department of Trade & Industry’s retired director of statistics pulls out his graphs on Greece and comes to the conclusion that the world has gone mad – that the productive assets Greece had which might have helped it balance the EU books simple don’t exist anymore. So despite everyone’s best efforts, the bailout may just be a postponement of the inevitable. – Alec Hogg  Â
By Krzysztof Wojciechowicz*
It seems we are living in an insane world. What would you say about a doctor who is counting and cutting out pox pimples on the patient’s skin, instead of starting to cure his disease? And this is exactly a case with Greece. Since her first treatment five years ago, her debt has increased two-fold and any subsequent cures would only multiply it.
The bankers, politicians, journalists, commentators talk only about tax cuts, pensions cuts, social security cuts, etc. Are they mentally disturbed or simply cynical?
Since joining EU in 1981, Greece main productive sectors – manufacturing and agriculture as well as ceased to exist.
The charts show percentage contribution of these two sectors to Greece’ GDP in 1970 – 2014:
Many economists were expressing doubts whether combining many differently developed countries into one organism would ever work. And a common currency still aggravated the problem. Greek economy couldn’t cope with more developed countries competition and her industrial infrastructure was completely destroyed. Now Greece has to rely entirely on imports while producing nothing. How is she expected to pay her ever increasing debts?
Are we to believe that EU politicians and bankers are so stupid as not to realize where the problem lies?
And if they do realize why don’t they propose some real medicine to cure Greece economy? Why are they suggesting only fiscal and financial austerity measures, knowing that they would only make the situation worse? Their cynical approach to the problem would suggest that Greece should leave this ‘kolhoz’ as soon as possible.
And let’s not forget every country member had to surrender quite a substantial part of its sovereignty to EU authorities, in the sphere of financial, fiscal, trade, economic and even foreign policies. Is it fair it blame Greece only, while EU was responsible for most of the decisions affecting her economy?
If something goes wrong with any country, the government is held responsible. And most of the vital decisions were delegated to EU authorities.
It looks like authority without responsibility – that’s what EU is.
* Statistics guru Krzysztof Wojciechowicz retired as Director Statistical Analysis at the DTI. You can reach him at [email protected]. His website address is http://www.econostatistics.co.za/index.html
