Scenes from Greece Part 1

This is all about people, specifically the Greeks, as seen against the backdrop of their unusual and unenviable position of possessing a potentially disastrous influence on the world's economy.  Here are some observations and intuitions gleaned from watching, speaking with, buying from, and occasionally seeking assistance from the people of Greece during our recent visit there.  Dry facts and conclusions will be offered at a later date.

Most current news and views about Greece are focused on that nation's "sovereign debt crisis."  For the Greeks we encountered, the crisis is a daily reality.  It is not all-consuming for them, but we saw how it has become a part of normal daily life in Greece in ways that are sometimes reasonable, sometimes shady, sometimes bemusing, and mostly understandable.  As always, additional insights, information and conclusions are welcome via the "comments" function at the end of this posting.

Our travels included Athens and three other cities in Greece, Dubrovnik in Croatia, Koper and Piran in Slovenia, and Venice, Italy.  There are so many great cultural and historical experiences to have in this corner of the world that even a visit whose duration is measured in weeks can do no more than just scratch the surface. Likewise, this writing about personal observations of, and interactions with, the Greek people during that time can provide only a superficial view of their attitudes and actions as they live their lives at the center of a world-wide economic morass that seems to have some of its deepest roots in Greek soil.

For the Greeks--as is true for people everywhere--these national cultural and historical heritages that are so remarkable to a visitor are mostly just a part of the daily background, and my guess is that they are usually a distant part of the background.  The debt crisis is mostly also a part of the daily background, but not quite so distant.  On that point, here are a few Greek scenes that we encountered.  These are observations to help bring personal and individual reality to the big-picture concepts of a sovereign debt crisis.  Draw your own conclusions before reading mine.  Here are the vignettes:

• Security preparations we observed in the morning prior to planned demonstrations in the vicinity of Parliament and Syntagma ("Constitution") Square in central Athens:  lots of police, complete with shields and gas masks, mostly standing in groups conversing among themselves; a well-armed soldier or two concealed in the off-street foliage (and probably a few more that we did not see, too); a crisp-looking contingent of the Greek Coast Guard; police buses and other vehicles in strategic placements.
• Security preparations late in the afternoon of the same day:  police, shields, masks and vehicles mostly as in the morning, but by this time many of the officers were engaged in several different card games; the soldiers seemed vigilant and (mostly) concealed, but the Coast Guard representatives were not in sight, and we learned upon reading the European Wall Street Journal the next day that the Coast Guard people were there to participate in the demonstration.
• Lots of graffiti on the walls and buildings:  mostly written in Greek, and so not understandable to us; some of it was in English, and that made it obvious that at least some of the messages were about social protest and targeted on the personal financial impacts of the debt crisis; my favorite graffiti was on the wall of an otherwise fine-looking building near the Acropolis--in big black letters it said "Eat the Rich."
• A 23% VAT:  in the United States we have state and local sales taxes on some of our purchases; in Greece and throughout Europe each country levies instead a national Value Added Tax (VAT); up until June the VAT on hospitality transactions in Greece had been 13%, and it had been at 9% as recently as a year ago, but is now 23%; this is one of the fiscal reforms imposed upon Greece as a condition for receiving the financial aid from the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
• Small merchant preference for cash transactions:  there's a very fine little restaurant on a street behind the new Acropolis Museum called Tokatiamo--if you are a fan of the Rick Steves travel books you can find a review of it in his current book on Greece--which accepts cash only, no credit cards; on Mykonos there is a tiny art gallery near the edge of town where the cash price is dramatically lower than is the credit card price; and so on with other similar experiences elsewhere in Greece.
• Cuts in current pension payments:  this is for today's recipients of pension payouts, as well as for those in the future; somebody who has been receiving a monthly payment is experiencing a reduction in that amount; it's another one of the fiscal austerity provisions being required of Greece by the ECB and the IMF.
• Athens is a very busy city, the rest of the country is mostly agricultural and quieter:  the Greek population is concentrated in a small number of urban areas; out of a national census of about 11 million, something like 4.5 million live in Athens and the immediate surrounding area, and another million live in the Thessaloniki metro area, which is the second-largest city in Greece; even with a 16% national unemployment rate and a rapidly shrinking government workforce that is centered in Athens we did not see much evidence of vagrancy or other social ills usually associated with high unemployment, whether in Athens or in the smaller cities and countryside areas; somehow, everybody either had something to do or their attendance was required at a street-side cafe.
• Athens is "walkable:"  on each day in Athens we walked the mile or so from out hotel to Syntagma Square and from there throughout the Plaka and the vicinity of the Acropolis and had no problems of any sort; one day we had planned on using the subway system, but that was the day of a general transit strike that was conducted as part of the general mood of protest against the government's acceptance of austerity measures.
• They don't trust their government:  this is probably not a surprise--and is, of course, far from unique to the Greeks--but some of the national chatter about their financial and economic predicaments seems to be pretty eccentric; for example, somewhere along the way we heard a story that some Greeks think that part of the cause of the problems is that the government allocated funding to buy four new submarines for the navy, but only three of them were delivered and nobody knows what happened to the money intended for the fourth.  According to defensenews.com there is a long-running Greek navy program for submarine construction and maintenance that has become bogged down and very expensive, but that reported story is not quite as ludicrous as the chatter would suggest.
• Athens has tourist police:  this was a nice surprise late one evening as we were walking around and needed directions--uniformed officers clearly designated to assist tourists needing guidance or help; they were professional and easily proficient in English and perhaps in other languages as well.
• Some people want to leave Greece:  our waiter at a restaurant one evening--this one accepted credit cards--was a very friendly, talkative and energetic young fellow whose primary employment seemed to be at a bank somewhere else in Athens, and he found that he needed the restaurant job in order to make ends meet (yes, they say that in Greece, too); at some point during the evening he commented that it might be necessary for him to leave Greece to find meaningful career employment opportunities; it sounded like Italy would be his destination of choice, though he wasn't clear on why Italy would be better than Greece.
• A euro doesn't go as far as it used to:  our experience with the exchange rate was that the euro was worth about US$1.36, give or take a couple of cents depending on the day; at this valuation things seemed to be pretty expensive to us, and I believe the locals have good reason to feel the same way.  For example, on Corfu we stopped at a McDonald's for some beverages and to do a spot check on The Economist's "Big Mac Index."  Granted that Corfu is a tourist destination, but the town is pretty small and everybody--tourists and locals alike--are all patronizing the same places.  The price of a Big Mac was 3,50 euro; even allowing for a "tourist premium" that seems like a pretty expensive Big Mac at the current exchange rate.
• Greeks have new discipline:  we also spoke with the waiter who might move to Italy about the next day's transit strike, which was set up to include taxi drivers as well as the public buses and trains, because we had a potential need on that day for transportation by taxi; he replied "no problem, let me check with my sister's friend who is a taxi driver because when there's one of these strikes some of the taxi drivers will always take rides for under-the-radar payments" (the radar metaphor is mine, but his message was the same) "and he can probably help out."  Well, our waiter friend returned a few minutes later with a somewhat puzzled look on his face and reported that for this particular strike there would be no exceptions--all of the taxi drivers throughout Athens would be a part of that day's protest.  Sure enough, on the next day we noticed that not a single public bus or train was operating, and the taxis were all locked and parked at the curbs throughout central Athens. 
• Most Greeks live in small spaces:  Athens is densely packed; we strolled for miles each day on streets in central Athens that were lined with apartments and small homes--in most cases these were occupying the upper levels of buildings that had shops and restaurants at ground level--and saw no evidence of expansive living quarters; the view from atop the Acropolis covers a city that extends over hills and valleys in all directions--from looking at the map, my guess is that we could see about 10 miles at all points of the compass--and nowhere could we see sights of the typical suburban sprawl that is so common in the USA.  Doubtless there are large and wealthy homes and compounds tucked away in places, but the overwhelming impression from looking over the entire city is one of the great majority of people living in a modest way.  

Greece is a beautiful and fascinating country, and as is true in every other country the vast majority of its people spend most of their energies in tending to the daily needs of life.  But it is also true that every place is different, and there is no doubt that Greece has its quirky characteristics.  Some of those characteristics just don't fit very well in today's financially-regimented world.  Greece will probably end up defaulting on its national debt in some way at some point in time.  That's for Part 2.