Posted by
Defend America on Friday, February 05, 2010 4:30:33 PM
Via Victor Davis Hanson on The Corner blog on National Review Online:
Is Greece Our Future? [Victor Davis Hanson]
I
lived in Greece for more than two years, and one of my best memories is
of a small hotelier at a seaside resort. He checked you in; he cooked;
he did the landscaping at night; he did all the maintenance during the
day. I asked him why he didn't hire more help, since his hotel wasn't
all that small and he seemed to be going 24/7. What followed was a
harangue about the cost of hiring a permanent worker in Greece, the
difficulty of ever firing him if he proved worthless, and why he
preferred to do everything himself rather than fill out all sorts of
forms and hire unmotivated but tenured employees. Besides, he said,
almost everyone was on some sort of pension, disability, or government
benefit, and was unwilling to work, so his choices were either illegal immigrants
or broke foreign students. Then he launched into a blast against
socialism, and explained how he was forced to become an expert tax
dodger, how he would barter for all the transactions he could, and why
he hated the government. He finished by sighing that in Greece, the
people spend their time either devising ways to get government money or
scheming to avoid the tax collectors — or, preferably, both.
I think the medicine for Greece's current crisis will prove more unpalatable than the wasting disease.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWI4N2M4ZjNhMjY4NjE3NTE3NzBmNjVhNjQ2ZThmY2Q=