What can Austerity do for you -- human saganaki, OPA!
Oh by all means let's have more of this over here:
From holding 80th place in the 176 countries on Transparency International's corruption perceptions index in 2011, Greece's global ranking, this year, fell to 94, the global watchdog announced on Wednesday. In terms of perceived levels of public corruption, Greece was on a par with Moldova and Mongolia. In the 27-strong EU, there was no other state that fared worse.
In a country not only mired in a fifth straight year of recession but enduring a third year of unprecedented austerity, where one in three now lives below the poverty line and a quarter of the population is unemployed, corruption is a means to an end.
It is, say analysts, the flipside of austerity in an economy in freefall. "To survive in such a hostile situation, you have to bend the rules," said political commentator Giorgios Kyrtsos. "There is no other way when things are so hard – you are forced to resort to corruption to deal with the state mechanism."
Austerity has created a nation no longer on the road to ruin, but taking up residence there.
The only solution forced upon the pople, of course, as Atrios has repeatedly stated, is more austerity.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]
4 comments:
StonyPillow
said...
There’s an easy solution to this — increase the tax rate on Rush Limbaugh.
Tax Rush Limbaugh till he screams like his cabana boys are all after him with machetes.
Tax Rush Limbaugh till he screams like they stopped making Oxycontin.
Tax Rush Limbaugh till he screams like they reclassified him 1A this morning, and three MPs in a Humvee are waiting outside to take him to basic training.
Tax Rush Limbaugh till he screams like he just found out all four of his wives are holding a joint press conference in front of the National Enquirer.
Tax Rush Limbaugh till he screams. That’s the answer. And yes, I’d gladly pay more tax, just to hear Rush Limbaugh scream.
Umm, we'd probably be right up there in the corruption index, if it weren't for our very practical policy of making corruption legal whenever we've been forced to confront it....
Rising Hegemon
4 comments:
There’s an easy solution to this — increase the tax rate on Rush Limbaugh.
Tax Rush Limbaugh till he screams like his cabana boys are all after him with machetes.
Tax Rush Limbaugh till he screams like they stopped making Oxycontin.
Tax Rush Limbaugh till he screams like they reclassified him 1A this morning, and three MPs in a Humvee are waiting outside to take him to basic training.
Tax Rush Limbaugh till he screams like he just found out all four of his wives are holding a joint press conference in front of the National Enquirer.
Tax Rush Limbaugh till he screams. That’s the answer. And yes, I’d gladly pay more tax, just to hear Rush Limbaugh scream.
Corruption? Just(ly) Ask RU$$IA!
Umm, we'd probably be right up there in the corruption index, if it weren't for our very practical policy of making corruption legal whenever we've been forced to confront it....
where is U$A?
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