Grécia, esmagada pela troika

The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, have asked Greece to pass 2013-2014 budgets in October which eliminate the annual deficit in three key ways:

- The public payroll must come down by at least 1.5 percent of GDP, producing savings of about $3.7bn. This requires laying off or retiring at least 150,000 people.

- Government operating costs must come down by 1 percent of GDP by moving out of leased properties, abolishing hundreds of committees and public entities that produce nothing, and even outsourcing some government functions. The troika says this could produce savings of about  $2.5bn

- Spending on pensions and healthcare must come down by 3 per cent of GDP, producing savings of about $7.5bn.

This package has been presented to the Troika representatives in order to be approved by them so that 31 billion euros of bail-out funds will be released and the Greek state saved from bankruptcy. It includes:

- Cuts in the funding of Ministries, that will make them almost impossible to function properly.

- A slashing in social spending, that includes reductions in family benefits, in special unemployment benefits for seasonal workers and other social benefits, including funding for travel expenses for patients receiving dialysis.

- A new wave of personnel reductions in the public sector, by forcing thousands of civil servants close to retirement age to enter “pre-retirement status” at reduced wages, by not rehiring public sector employees on limited term contracts (e.g. substitute teachers or adjunct faculty), and by reducing the total number of public sector institutions.

- New cuts in pensions and public sector wages. The cuts in pensions will not simply deteriorate the quality of life for senior citizens. They will deprive families of an income that was instrumental in sustaining forms of intergenerational solidarity.

- A massive new wave of privatizations.

- Cuts in health spending, in a period when Greece is very close to a humanitarian crisis. These cuts will jeopardize the ability of many hospitals and clinics to function properly and will lead to a deterioration of the quality of health services and a reduction in total health coverage.

- The reduction of the total number of Universities, University departments and Higher Education Institutions, through a process of “spatial restructuring” of Higher Education.

- The freeze in hiring in all levels of education, mass lay-offs of adjunct faculty, new education budget cuts – including the abolition of the gratis provision of university textbooks –, and increased tuition for graduate courses.

- Reduced funding for culture and the Arts

Isto num pais da EU onde a taxa de desemprego,  após 39 semanas consecutivas de crescimento, atingiu um novo record de 25,4% (1,7 milhões de gregos sem trabalho). E o custo da mão de obra se degrada mês após mês (-11.5% no 1.º trimester 2012).

Portugal, estamos preparados?

...Greece's rundown state hospitals are cutting off vital drugs, limiting non-urgent operations and rationing even basic medical materials for exhausted doctors as a combination of economic crisis and political stalemate strangle health funding. 

With Greece now in its fifth year of deep recession, trapped under Europe's biggest public debt burden and dependent on international help to keep paying its bills, the effects are starting to bite deeply into vital services. "It's a matter of life and death for us," said Persefoni Mitta, head of the Cancer Patients' Association, recounting the dozens of calls she gets a day from Greeks needing pricey, hard-to-find cancer drugs. "Why are they depriving us of life?" 

Outside one of the 133 state hospitals - whose managers have sometimes been appointed as supporters of whichever political party was in power at the time - a banner put up by protesting staff reads "Hospitals Belong to the People". Inside, its gloomy labyrinth of corridors tell a different story. 

A doctor at the university hospital in the northwestern Athens suburb of Chaidari cites a lack of basic examining room supplies in her own department, such as cotton wool, catheters, gloves and paper used to cover the examining table. The shortage of paper, which is thrown out after each patient has used it, means corners have to be cut on hygiene. "Sometimes we take a bed sheet instead and use it for several patients," said Kiki Kiale, a radiologist specializing in cancer screening. "It's tragic but there's no other solution." 

Kiale, 52, said staff cutbacks and a lack of crucial equipment - including a digital mammography machine - meant some doctors were seeing 40 patients during a shift but many patients were still unable to get treatment. In the chaos, patients can slip through the cracks or turn up for treatment again only when their illness has progressed too far for them to be saved. "Some incidents are lost completely, others manage to return after a year but it's too late," said Kiale, who spent five years working in Britain's National Health Service (NHS), adding that the lack of stable government made the problem worse. ...

Reuters 21.08.12 

É fundamental antecipar em tempo oportuno os efeitos de uma crise desta natureza e das medidas tomadas para a debelar sobre o bem-estar das pessoas e a saúde das populações 

Constantino Sakellarides, coordenador do OPSS 

How Does Greece Compare link

Sinais de deriva

... A querida troika veio encontrar uma execução orçamental em que nenhuma das célebres reformas prometidas e esperadas avançou (eu rio-me da ignorância deles quando oiço os alemães dizer que Portugal não tem outro caminho senão continuar com as reformas). Em que a dívida pública aumentou e o défice estabelecido para este ano nem por intervenção divina será cumprido. Em que 300.000 pessoas perderam o emprego e dezenas de milhares de empresas faliram e muitas mais vão falir porque a banca não empresta um tostão a ninguém — e até o mais assanhado esquerdista sabe que, sem crédito, não há economia que possa funcionar. Em que 19 das 20 empresas do PSI-20 se mudaram para melhores residências fiscais e os que ficaram estão a ser exterminados por um governo ‘liberal’ que tornou tão insustentável a carga fiscal que em lugar de recolher mais dinheiro o perdeu. E em que, finalmente, toda a poupança na despesa pública foi conseguida com cortes de salários, mantendo intacta a superstrutura que arruína o país e os maus hábitos de proteger com dinheiros públicos os amigos do costume.

Um ano e meio decorrido, depois de ter aceitado os sacrifícios impostos com uma resiliência que todos reconhecem, os portugueses têm o direito de esperar que o Governo e a troika lhes digam o que correu mal e porquê, e o que vai ser mudado ou revisto. E não adianta virem com desculpas sobre a conjuntura externa, porque esta é a mesma maioria que não aceitava essa explicação ao governo anterior. Não adianta virem dizer que a situação era bem pior do que esperavam, pois que nos juraram que conheciam bem a situação e estavam preparados para governar (e ainda esperamos provado “desvio colossal”...). Supondo que, quer o Governo quer a troika, não tenham a humildade de reconhecer que falharam no diagnóstico e na solução, é de esperar, pelo menos, que não venham, simplesmente, propor-nos mais do mesmo. Estamos pobres e descrentes, todavia ainda não estúpidos de todo.’

Miguel Sousa Tavares, semanário Expresso, 01.09.12 link

Quem beneficiou mais com a adesão ao euro?

Masa Serdarevic (Blog Alphaville, FT) destaca o relatório do UBS, que sugere que os países periféricos (Grécia, Portugal e Espanha), beneficiaram mais desde a adesão ao euro do que países ricos como Alemanha e França link (Finlândia parece ser a excepção).

Num outro relatório, recém publicado, Mark Cliffe (ING) tenta avaliar a exposição das economias dos países da EU à eventual saída da Grécia do euro link

Tudo em andamento para o chuto final da Grécia. link