Beware of Greeks receiving gifts

And lo, it came to pass: a bailout was agreed, and a Greek default was narrowly averted.

Yesterday, Eurozone leaders finally agreed on the terms of a €237bn (£198bn) bailout for Greece The bailout comprises the much-debated €130bn in new funds, plus another €107bn writeoff of debt held by private bond-holders. It’s a positive outcome to wrangles that had threatened to go on ad infinitum, and means Greece will be able to pay off its debts. For the time being, anyway.

Marathon is a Greek word, and this has indeed been a marathon - and it's not over yet. This won't be the last of it because the Greek government has to make good on its promises to implement the austerity measures it has agreed to. And it will have Euro zone overseers to make sure it knuckles down. Probably Germans - poor old Greeks!

I love Greece and the Greek people. The country is beautiful in a rather cruel way and the people are the most hospitable on earth. But when you visit Greece, its easy to see how they got into some of the mess they are in now. Their state sector is hugely bloated (in a country of about 10 million people, around 2 million work for the state) with four people doing the job of one or two, their retirement age has been set ludicrously low for some professions (I know someone who retired from a bank aged 40 after having done 20 years service, got her full pension paid immediately and a lump sum which she used to open a shop and so also got a second income) and for some, their working hours are relatively short (the utility companies are open for just five and a half hours each day - 8am until 1.30pm- Monday to Friday). The upper echelons of society have been famous for years for their tax evasion (or should that be avoidance - never been clear what the difference was) and Greek businesses owe billions in back tax to the Greek exchequer, about which it appears that nothing is done.

But the people that are really suffering in all this are, of course, the common populace. Set against all this overmanning and lax practice are other honest people that pay their bills, work for themselves and work all the hours Zeus sends. These people are now being asked to pay hugely increased taxes, seeing their wages shrink or be cut, prices in the shops increase and their standard of living dramatically eroded. They are in despair, and rightly so.

The situation is bad in Athens, but it's worse on the islands where they do not have the commerce and year round business to alleviate some of the pressure. One generation is being expected to pay for the excesses and inadequacies of the previous five or six. It can't be done, and the amount of pain it is causing is difficult to witness.

The opinion of many in Greece is that at some stage a default is inevitable, and many there actively want to go back to the drachma, giving Greece greater control over its own destiny instead of being tied into the powerhouse economy of Germany. Whether that will make a difference is debatable, and it will only work if they radically change the way their taxation system operates and once and for they all address their national culture - in the past, not paying tax has been something of a national sport! PAYE would perhaps be a good way forward, a longer working life until 60 and, in these days of air conditioning, more standardised (ie nine to five) working hours for the money. Something else that could be done with the excessive number of public sector workers is to transfer them into other jobs to do something about the crumbling infrastructure; there are numerous potholes and dangerous pavements, the streets are dirty and graffiti is rife, street lighting is broken and inoperable and many beaches are covered in litter or old rusty pieces of iron sticking out of the breakwaters, all of which requires attention.  Repairing it all would restore some pride in a country which depends so much on how it looks to attract visitors and feed one of its major industries these days, tourism.

Maybe if Greece wants to leave the Euro, we should allow them to do so. I don't believe the euro as a whole would collapse just because one country leaves it, and it may provide a better balance for those that are left inside. I also believe it is no use harking back to the end of World War II and the fact that the Germans still owe Greece 41 billion euros in reparation. They ain't gonna pay it, and you are where you are. Now you have to deal with it. 

Of course I'm not an expert and I may be talking bunkum. There will be lots of other solutions and ideas about how to deal with this and lots more people who are much better informed than me. If anyone reading this has a bright idea, I'd like to hear it. Perhaps what I'm thinking is too simplistic (something I am often accused of) but it seems logical to me. Let me know - I have a vested interest!