BREAKING….GREEK BUREAUCRAT CULL: Nobody fired

The Mad in pursuit of the obdurate.

“We’re late! We’re late! For a totally obvious fate”

The newly published EC July Report on ‘Economic Reforms in Greece’ has a strong sense of déjà vu about it. That is to say, the Eurocrats are as deranged as ever, and the feather-bedded Greek bureaucrats are becoming increasingly obstinate in the face of demands to cut their numbers.
The best thing I can do is display some extracts to illustrate these points.
“perseverance in implementing the ongoing reforms will be key to deliver concrete results in the fight against tax evasion.”
Given that most of the big money is now in Switzerland, and most of the Greeks have no money left, I’m hard-pushed to see exactly what ‘perseverance’ is likely to produce in the way of results.

“Several important structural reforms have been implemented in the areas of healthcare”.
An interesting description of wanton destruction, worthy of Jeremy Hunt as his worst.
“Signals from economic indicators are mixed.”
Hard to see any positives in there. I’m talking stuff like growth, employment, fiscal position, exports, new start-ups, business tax take, or indeed a single indicator beyond ‘dire slump’. But the Sprouts don’t see it that way….
“The recent fall in labour costs should help mitigate the effects of the recession on unemployment, which has reached a record level at 26.9%.”
It’s had eighteen months to do some mitigating, but to date Greece is free of any mitigation, solace, or jobs. The austerity caused the recession, which in turn caused the fall in labour costs: so now the EC argues that the cheaper labour costs can mitigate the effects of something the Troika caused in the first place….without in any way reducing Greece’s fiscal debt. Higgledee hobbledee Hanglepee my wife is an apple and my house is a pie, burbledee blubbububub dinglepop and every Grecian pig can fly.
But as the mass of the population remains destitute, and Avengealot ‘Seven-lunches’ Verizealous demands another entire office and staff, the bureaucrats are, as ever, engaged in a campaign of public-sector terrorism to ensure that nothing happens to change their privileged position in society:
“The downsizing of the public administration continues, but further delays have occurred in the delivery of public administration reforms…the authorities missed the end-June target for the completion and adoption of staffing plans cumulating to 450,000 staff and for the transfer of 12,500 employees to the mobility scheme. As of end-June, the authorities have not adopted staffing plans beyond those covering 211,000 staff adopted in April….preparations for another 200,000 staff have advanced, at variable speed…..[BUT]….No employee has been placed in the mobility scheme…”
When it comes to bollocks, I always find, the sting is in the tail. The Real-English translation of the above is, “Not a single public employee has been fired”. Whatever your country might be – Britain, France, Spain or Holland – the Civil Servant mandarins have all the blackmail they need to avoid any unpleasantness. Reading this EC Report, I was struck by the similarity between it and a report for George Osborne on firing UK MoD staff that was leaked to me and others in 2011.
A Greek internal Ministry document I’ve been shown says that the project is to cut 450,000 jobs. On the far right of the table, it says “Not observed, rephased”.
This has further ramifications – not all of which are bad:
“Limited progress has been made in selling assets through privatisation, and proceeds in 2013 have so far been clearly below expectations. After missing the end-December 2012 target for privatisation proceeds by a wide margin, targets for 2013 will most likely also be missed….”
No matter what the target, the margin between nought and a number is incalculably wide. And no matter how high the expectations, “below” is a bottomless pit when the achievement is zero.
Personally, I applaud the Greeks for sabotaging this bit of the “help” they’re getting from Brussels-am-Berlin; it’s a thinly disguised scam designed to help Germany grab Greek assets on the cheap once privatised.

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What does this latest episode from Wonderland-on-Drugs tell us? That Greek Ministers, Greek bureaucrats, Brussels bureaucrats, International lenders and Germany’s political class do not GAF what happens to the ordinary citizen of this or any other EU country.
It’s not exactly new news, but it’s always as well to keep on collecting facts, in readiness for the showtrials to come.
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/