What's the real reason behind the Greek rioters?

Great Debates
1

Riots happened this weekend as the Greek Parliament passed more austerity measures in order to be allowed to borrow more money in an attempt to stave off bankruptcy. Similar things happened last year as the debate was raging over Greece’s economy. I’m no economic expert, but I can understand that the government of Greece sees a problem and a solution that seems to go contrary to what many of the people in Greece believe. What I don’t really get is the true motivations by the rioters

Suppose for a second that their protestations are genuine, and that they’re not all just soccer hooligans who wants to riot to have a good time, here’s what seems to me the core issue: The Greek government thinks more austerity measures will help to prevent or mitigate their collapsing economy by allowing them to placate demands from the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the IMF and other EU countries and in turn allow them to borrow more money or somehow get more money to shore up their finances. The Greek people, or specifically, the rioters, thinks that bunk. But what is it they are specifically rioting against? There’s a few possible motives by the rioters that I’m not getting from the news. They are:

  1. They believe the financial situation’s that bad but think the austerity measures go too far

  2. They believe the situation’s bad but simply don’t want the austerity. They’re simply acting out their frustrations

  3. They believe the situation’s bad but feel that there is a way to solve it other than harsh austerity, and the alternative plan is being ignored

  4. They don’t believe the situation’s that bad

As a foreigner, hearing all of the end-of-the-world analysis by economic talking heads, I would think that if I believed our economy is that bad, but will get worse if we don’t do something, I would be reluctantly for harsh austerity measures. I wouldn’t riot because i would accept that austerity is the best of a slew of worse options.

But folks who riot, do they have an alternative plan? If they stop the austerity, what then? Do they think their country will magically emerge from the economic pit? Or would other measures be enacted that’s not so bad? It seems to me that the only reason I would riot is if I don’t believe the situation’s bad at all. If I actually believed the terrible economic report, I would support the austerity unless I had a better plan

2

I think alot of greeks are angry that they have to suffer for mistakes they have had no hand in.

3

I’d guess that general frustration is driving the riots, rather than a specific list of demands … much like the Occupy protests. Probably there’s anger that people now have to pay for mistakes of people in the past, even if they are, in most cases, the same people. There may also be people who feel the austerity measures will affect them personally out of proportion to the overall Greek population. I haven’t seen a lot of individual interviews done with Greek rioters though.

4

Do they even have a leader? Is there an opposition party or group that is working against the measures?

5

New to this world, are they?

6

It’s the democratically elected Greek governments that got them in this mess (helped by Goldman Sachs) and now they collectively are held reponsible/are expected to make do with a much lower stndard of living. I understand many people feel they are treated unfairly, but they are wrong; one of the handy things of democratic elections is that the populace can indirectly be held accountable for mismanagement of the country.

Honestly, I’m getting ever more pessimistic about it working out with Greece in the Euro; mainly because of what is being asked of the Greek people. Since it isn’t realistic to expect the richer countries to keep throwing money into thid bottomless well (they thrown in quite a bit already), the only other option is to cut them loose and see how they’ll cope after devaluing (and being without credit). The choice for Greece is pretty much between ‘following’ the demands of the other Euro countries and seeing what happens without EU support.

7

I’m interested in this, but, I have no insights to provide.

I’ve always assumed that the rioters were receiving some “dole” from the government that has been cut, and that they believe that the rich are not doing their fare-share to help with the crisis. I’ve always thought it was a “give us what we’re entitled to, and take it from the rich/banks/corporations” type of protest. But, I’d love to get some better insight.

8

I wouldn’t riot becuase it is killing their tourism industry which was huge.

Stupid it is.

9

I have a Greek friend and in my conversations with her I believe much of the rioting is due to frustration. Many Greeks feel that the current mess was brought on by the financial elite who have made their money, created the collapse, and now everybody is paying for it. Some of the opposition want the austerity pain to fall mostly on the elite.

10

The greek people have been willing participants in their downfall for some time now. The big problem is that they didn’t know that that was where it was leading.

So to a great extent it is the fault of the people in charge. We elect people to take charge of such things as the economy. They had oversight of the deficit and did nothing. They didn’t seek to change a damn thing and were happy to ride a gravy train that in turn, allowed them to stay in office and play smoke and mirrors with the populace.

The austerity measures being suggested just to temporarily stay in the euro zone are fairly horrendous and because they have to be done now,rather than bit by bit over the last decade, they feel all the more harsh. The people are quite rightly angry about this.

So anyway, now they are bankrupt. Any bail-out they get is merely delaying the inevitable of a greek default and euro exit. Painful certainly but the greek people are seeing a return to the drachma as a way to at least put their future in their own hands, bleak as it may be. To continue under the E.U.'s anti-democratic control for an unspecified period to an unspecified end whilst still enduring the same drop in living standards is looking unattractive.
I wish them well and hope the E.U. enters a proper period of self analysis and restructuring after this.

11

Yep. What I think’s perhaps a bit unique about the Greek situation, though, is that while the banks and government certainly screwed the pooch, the near universal tax evasion and financial malfeasance perpetrated by the Greek population in general means that their hands are a bit dirtier in this case than they’d like to think.

12

When assigning blame for the failure of the Greek economy, then percentage wise how much is this the fault of the Greek people not paying their taxes all these years and how much is this the fault of banks and other “financial elite” screwing over Greece?

13

[QUOTE=Consensus]
I think alot of greeks are angry that they have to suffer for mistakes they have had no hand in.
[/QUOTE]

I agree that a lot of them (probably most of them) think this. That they are wrong really has little to do with their anger over the situation, unfortunately. Equally unfortunately, they are screwed no matter what at this point…there are no happy endings for them, and as another poster said, their rioting will actually hurt them more, since it will cut down on tourism, one of the few things Greece has going for it these days and a major source of revenue. That fact seems equally lost on the Greeks, however.

-XT

14

Well, how did banks “screw over” Greece? By loaning them money? I guess the banks that loaned money to Greece expected that whatever happened, Germany would be there to bail them out, and therefore loans to Greece were as safe as loans to Germany. And so Greece accumulated truly stupendous levels of debt, which allowed Greek citizens to have low taxes while enjoying relatively high levels of government services.

Except of course that loaning money to Greece isn’t the same as loaning money to Germany.

15

I think it’s worth reviewing the terms of the latest deal:
[ul]
[li]Across the board wage cuts in the private sector averaging 22%. This includes cutting the minimum wage[/li][li]Elimination of rent subsidies for the poor and cuts to pensions.[/li][li]Privatization of public works–such as the Athens and Thessaloniki water companies, and the lottery/football pool company–at what most observers agree are lowball prices.[/li][/ul]
And remember, these new terms are being imposed after nearly two years of austerity which has seen nominal wages drop 15% and unemployment soar past 20% (about double the rest of Europe). And what does Greece get in return? Nothing, really–the bailout is going directly to their creditors (mostly in Germany, who insisted the bulk of the bailout be placed in a separate account purely to service Greek debt). Plus the fact that this was pretty much rammed down the government’s throat (Greek MPs received the terms on Saturday and were forced to vote the next day).

Two years of austerity have been an abject failure, and the prescription is for even more of the same to appease creditors in Germany and France. I’d be rioting too.

16

I recall that in the 1980’s through to the 1990’s Greece was a very popular holiday location for Northern Euros, and the attracting factor was price.

In the last 10 years or so, that has been pretty much wiped out, first the tourists went to Turkey, and now that is getting pricey, and then they started to return to their previous holiday spots, Spain, Portugal, along with adding in the Dominican republic.

Spain and Portugal have generally been better at the holiday market and had to make some changes to get customers back - tourists started to look at Greece much more objectively, why pay the same or more to go to Greece when you can have the better standards elsewhere for the same money?

The Greeks simply did not heed the warning signs, and kept increasing their pricing relative to others, whilst the market had not shrunk all that much, the value of it has declined, and market share has gone down, which is disastrous for an economy predicated on expansion.

The cost of running the Greek state has risen, whilst income hasn’t and the gap was made up by borrowing, and simply lying about the books.

The contraction of the Greek economy means they have less and less chance of repaying their debt, and they don’t have the industry to make up the difference. The will probably default, the loans are nothing more than a self support mechanism by other member states for their own over-exposed financial sector - the money will do no good to the Greeks.

Perhaps this is one reason for the riots, the Greeks know that very hard times are in store and the cutbacks will not have any benefit to them, just to a load of unwise investors.

17

But if there’s no money, there’s no money. Rioting won’t make money suddenly appear where there isn’t any.

18

[QUOTE=Alessan]
But if there’s no money, there’s no money. Rioting won’t make money suddenly appear where there isn’t any.
[/QUOTE]

Nope…but it will let people vent, and also let folks circle around and convince each other that it’s really not THEIR fault. It was the other guys fault (the banks, the other members in the EU, the Turks (these ARE Greeks after all)). It’s a very human reaction, something akin to our own (in the US) Occupy Movement.

-XT

19

Maybe they could try to collect royalties from the rest of us for inventing civilization.

Yeah, I know they didn’t technically do that, but I still laughed my ass off when I first heard Bill Maher say something along those lines.

And I’m not buying that the Greek people had no hand in this and they are all victims. They voted in the politicians who set up their disastrous fiscal policies. They had some of the cushiest benefits in Europe, and now the chickens have come home to roost.

20

I am sure that we who sympathize with the Occupy movement appreciate your kindly condescension for our frailties.