<\/p>\n
The Wall Street Journal Europe<\/p>\n
10 February 2010<\/p>\n
\u00a0By Takis Michas<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n But in Greece, unlike elsewhere, if those responsible for the deception are members of a (previous) government and if the victims are \u201cforeigners\u201d (\u201cxenoi,\u201d in Greek) they run no such risk. The most they can expect is slap on the wrist and a mild \u201cPlease don\u2019t do it again!\u201d<\/p>\n This in a nutshell describes the Greek financial situation. Although it is certain by now that the former New Democracy government fiddled with the statistics in order to boost Greece\u2019s economic image with investors, no legal charges have been brought against either the former prime minister Costas Karamanlis nor his economic entourage. Yet the conscious distortion of the figures concerning Greece\u2019s fiscal deficit clearly constitutes deception of the perspective buyers of Greek debt. The latter were led to demand a much lower risk premium than they would have, had the true facts of the situation been known to them. And although the present prime minister George Papandreou was brave enough\u2014by Greek standards\u2014to reveal the magnitude of the financial misdeeds of the previous administration, he nevertheless shied away from ordering a full scale investigation into this fraud.<\/p>\n The unwillingness or inability of the Greek legal and political system to seek out and punish the perpetrators of this act of disinformation has created a moral vacuum in which all kinds of conspiracy theories flourish. They all have in common that they blame the victims\u2014the holders of Greek debt\u2014for Greece\u2019s present predicament. Everday, the Greek media are filled with stories about the despicable \u201cspeculators,\u201d \u201cprofiteers,\u201d \u201cbankers,\u201d \u201cfinanciers,\u201d and \u201cShylocks\u201d that are to blame for the economic mess the country is in.<\/p>\n According to the dominant conspiracy theory, Greece is presently engaged in a gigantic fight to save the honor of the euro zone\u2014believe it or not. The \u201cattacks\u201d of the \u201cforeign speculators\u201c against Greece in effect represent an onslaught against the euro by all the \u201cdark forces\u201d (read: Americans) who do not wish Europe to prosper and assume its rightful place on the international scene. This is a discourse that goes down extremely well with the majority of the population. For 30 years, all of Greece\u2019s political parties have fed them a steady diet of \u201canti-imperialist\u201d rhetoric, according to which the causes of Greece\u2019s misfortunes is always the xenoi<\/em> and the machinations of \u201cneoliberal profiteering.\u201d So it comes as little surprise that such conspiracy theories are so popular. Indeed, when one does hear an average Greek say, \u201cWe can blame only ourselves\u201d for the crisis, what he usually means is that Greeks hurt themselves by revealing to the \u201cforeigners\u201d the true size of the fiscal deficit. If only the present government had not revealed to the world the deception, Greece, according to this narrative, could continue to milk the \u201cstupid Franks\u201d for many years to come. In other words, the problem is not the size of the deficit per se but the fact the present government of Greece chose to tell the world about it.<\/p>\n In other words, Greece\u2019s problem is not only economic. It is also moral.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fudging of statistical data,\u201d says Prof. George Bitros of the Athens Univeristy of Economics and Buisiness, \u201dhas been a long tradition in Greece and not just because of interventions on the part of the government.\u201d He goes on: \u201cIt is a serious systemic failure that has its roots in the failure of the political system as well as the structure and lack of transparency in the public sector. This is to say that the cancer has spread deeper into the structure of the system and would turn even saints into Rasputins.\u201d<\/p>\n Failing to punish those who bear the political responsibility for this massive deception will do nothing to restore Greece\u2019s credibility among international investors. On the other hand instituting legal proceedings against those responsible may not necessarily pacify the markets but will definitely show the world that deception is not tolerated in Greece\u2014even if the victims are the xenoi<\/em>.<\/p>\n Mr. Michas writes for the news portal www.newtime.gr<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Wall Street Journal Europe 10 February 2010 \u00a0Greece Is Bankrupt (Morally at least) \u00a0By Takis Michas In Greece, as elsewhere, if the management of a company reports misleading figures about the company\u2019s financial situation in order to boost the price of the shares or to support the sale of securities, it risks facing criminal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-40217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vivvo-category-35","tag-75"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137478,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40217\/revisions\/137478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/christiannaloupa.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/02\/takis-michas.jpg\" "\\"Takis")
In Greece, as elsewhere, if the management of a company reports misleading figures about the company\u2019s financial situation in order to boost the price of the shares or to support the sale of securities, it risks facing criminal charges. Around the world, including in Greece, this is securities fraud.<\/p>\n