IMF chief riles Greeks
Political leaders in Athens and thousands of internet users have rounded
on International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde for branding
Greeks tax dodgers, as parties went on the campaign trail for next month's
elections.Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos accused Lagarde on Sunday of
trying to "humiliate" the debt-stricken country, which is facing its
second election in six weeks, a vote seen as crucial to the future of the
eurozone.Radical left-wing leader Alexis Tsipras, whose Syriza party is one of
the two top contenders for the June 17 vote, insisted "Greek workers pay
their taxes, which are unbearable".Greek web users waged Facebook war
against Lagarde, with the IMF's French managing director receiving more than 10
000 messages, many of them obscene, on her page on the online social network.By
late Sunday afternoon a separate Facebook page had sprung up titled
"Greeks are against Lagarde".Their anger was sparked by comments
Lagarde made in Britain's Guardian newspaper on Friday that Greeks must
"help themselves collectively" by all paying taxes, saying she was
more concerned about Africans in poverty than Greeks in the economic
crisis.Among the online messages posted by angry Greeks, Iakovos Magdakis
wrote: "Who are you to tell me to pay? My wife has been unemployed for
four years, I have been unemployed for five months and we have a four-month-old
baby."Lagarde responded to the flood of angry online messages by
responding on Facebook that she was "very sympathetic to the Greek people
and the challenges they are facing"."That's why the IMF is supporting
Greece in its endeavour to overcome the current crisis," she said on the
social networking site.The comments by the French IMF head came as parties
squared off for the election that could determine whether Greece continues to
receive European Union-IMF funds as part of a multi-billion euro bailout
package and stays in the eurozone.Tsipras seized on her comments to assert his
stance as a defender against economic cuts, which drove many Greeks to vote for
him in an inconclusive election on May 6, putting him second ahead of
Venizelos's Pasok party."The last thing we seek in Greece is her sympathy.
Greek workers pay their taxes, which are unbearable," Tsipras said in a
statement, taking a swipe at Pasok and the conservative New Democracy party
which came first in May."For tax evaders, she should turn to Pasok and New
Democracy to explain to her why they haven't touched the big money and have
been chasing the simple worker for two years."In France, whose Socialist
President Francois Hollande has defended Greece's place in the
eurozone and pushed for a more growth-orientated strategy in the crisis,
government spokesperson Najat Vallaud-Belkacem described Lagarde's comments as
"rather simplistic and stereotypical".Venizelos welcomed Lagarde's
Facebook message, after saying an election rally: "Nobody can humiliate
the Greek people during the crisis."Greece made a deal in 2010 to receive
hundreds of billions of euros from the IMF and the EFSF, a European Union
bailout fund, to rescue it from financial collapse. Lagarde took the reins of
the global lender in May 2011.The country will head to the polls for a second
time in six weeks on June 17 since political parties failed to form a coalition
after the May 6 election.Syriza, which has threatened to renege on the bailout
accords, has led at times in the opinion polls, but a series of polls published
Sunday indicated New Democracy had taken the lead.New Democracy and Pasok each
defend the bailout agreement they signed as partners in a coalition government,
but have proposed to amend it.Venizelos said he wants to extend the loan
repayments."The country needs a government that will unite the people and
revise the loan agreement, but assure we stay in the euro," he said
Sunday.Former prime minister Lucas Papademos has warned that Greece may run out
of money by the end of June if international bailout funds are cut off
following the election, To Vima newspaper reported Sunday.Campaigning on Saturday,
New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras said a victory for Syriza would cause
"catastrophe" and send Greece out of the euro.
Greece's crime bonanza
Andreas and Emilia Karabalis, who are both 80, feared their bank in
Greece would collapse, so they withdrew their €80 000 ($100 000) savings and
stashed it at home for safety. Days later, the thieves came in the night.
"We were sleeping. The two masked burglars came to our bed and tied us up.
They hit us. "They robbed us - they didn't leave anything, it was torture,"
said Emilia, who still trembles when she recalls the attack this month on the island of Lefkada. Husband Andreas
added: "Our life is black now. They took our life's savings. We lost
everything." No one knows just how much cash lies stashed in Greek homes,
secreted in cupboards, at the back of the ice-box, beneath the floor or under
the mattress. But by any guess it is well in the billions, and burglars are
after their share of loot which is both highly portable and virtually
impossible to recover. Greece's debt crisis has plunged it into five straight
years of economic contraction, thrown half of its young people out of work and
may see it ejected from the eurozone. In the past two years, Greeks have
withdrawn from banks more than €72bn - or close to €7 000 for every man, woman
and child in the country. And much of that has been taken in cash. No money in robbing banks Police say
that gangs who may have once eyed "hard targets", - like the banks
themselves, or jewellers - are now going after homes of ordinary people, where
there is far less risk and often large stashes of cash freshly withdrawn from
savings accounts. "Many people have withdrawn their money from the banks
fearing a financial crash, and they either carry it on them, find a hideout at
home or in storage rooms," said national police spokesperson Thanassis
Kokkalakis. "We urge people to trust the banking system, leave their money
there, or at least in a safe place, not hide it at home, where they must anyway
take the basic security measures," he said. "Some people don't even
lock their doors and windows." The unexpected bonanza is attracting
foreign crime networks, he said, including two from ex-Soviet Georgia which police dismantled in recent months, blaming them for 300
burglaries. Crime is just one hazard for people storing unusually large hoards
of cash, most of which are not insured. There are tales of savings going up in
smoke in fires or, as in one case, being lost when a pensioner withdrew his
life savings - then died suddenly, before telling his family where they were
hidden. Theft, though, seems the biggest risk and the crime wave has spread far
beyond the big cities into rural areas where robbery was little known.
Carpenter George Psychogios, 30, withdrew his savings of €8 000 and kept them
in his house at Arta, a small town 350km from Athens and known principally for
its Byzantine stone bridge and a 13th-century church. "I hid the money in
two different places before leaving for a trip. When I came back it was all
gone," he said. "They broke into the house through a balcony door and
they took it all." "We used to sleep outside with the doors unlocked.
Now we don't feel safe even when we lock up. They break into homes, shops,
businesses. There is a surge in robberies here." In Iraklion, a working
class neighbourhood of Athens, local people say some thieves have become so
brazen that they often prowl in broad daylight, even when a family is in.
"We were sitting on the front veranda chatting when they jumped from the
roof to the back yard and got into the house," said pensioner Mattheos
Michelakakis, 61. Before he realised what had happened, they had made off with
his family's gold. "Burglars hear that people are scared and withdrawing
money and they hit homes randomly hoping they will be lucky," he said.
"I feel like I've been naive. We always used to leave all the doors open;
we had nothing to worry about." Hoarding
in troubled times According to the central bank, Greeks withdrew €72bn
from bank accounts between January 2010 and March 2012, leaving just €165bn
behind. Since then, withdrawals have accelerated further after an inconclusive
May 6 election led Eurtopean Union leaders to talk openly of Greek exit from the
single currency. Some of that money was wired abroad and some spent, but much
of it was hidden in homes, either in cash or converted to gold. If Greece leaves the common
currency area, any money left in Greek banks would probably be turned into
drachmas worth a good deal less. Euros stashed in a box at home would still be
euros. "People have already taken their money out of the bank. The rest
are doing it now because they are afraid we will be kicked out of the
eurozone," said one police officer. Among cases he said he had come across
in the past week: a man reported €30 000 in cash and gold stolen from a storage
room next to his house and an elderly woman had her life savings of €100 000
stolen from her apartment. That woman's home also happened to be packed full of
cartons of long-life milk and boxes of pasta - in case, she explained, the
economic crisis led to food shortages. Stashing cash is as old as Greece. The countryside is
dotted with archaeological sites where the ancients squirrelled away their silver
drachmas to hide them from marauding armies. Greek museums are rich in treasure
whose owners never made it back. "Hiding valuables - small or larger
amounts of coins, golden, silver, even bronze - was very widespread in
antiquity, especially in times of war, crisis or difficulty," said George
Riginos of the Association of Greek Archaeologists. "Sometimes the owner
would perish and this is how they reached us, hidden in the ground, in holes in
the wall, small vases under the floor or leather bags." Future
archaeologists may yet stumble on some of the buried treasure of the eurozone
crisis of 2012. A senior banker tells the story of a family on the island of Rhodes who recently visited
their local branch, trying desperately to figure out how much their late father
had withdrawn before he died. Not trusting the bank, the old man had taken out
his life savings. But he hadn't told anyone where he hid it. His children were
searching everywhere, tearing down walls in the house trying to find it, but
with no luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment