'Boots On The Ground' In Greece: "Stop The German Bloodletting"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/01/2015 11:31 -0400
Since my arrival into the country late May, the topic
of most discussions I overhear everywhere are naturally about the debt
negotiations.
I’d call opinions in support or against the Tsipras
governments’ activities pretty sharply divided.
Tsipras supporters are generally fed-up with 5yrs of
blood-letting “from the Germans”.
Critics, on the other hand, see the euro as some sort
of abstract membership in a club that must be retained at all cost.
A minority even criticize Tsipras for—get this—being
too soft.
That’s especially true where I’ve been staying here in
the port-city of Piraeus, which – being the country’s biggest port, is home to
mostly blue collar, working class folks where unions more or less dominate.
To illustrate the political leanings around here, I
hazily recall a headline in a newsfeed summing up their worldview quite
accurately: “Piraeus – a neighborhood where Syriza is not quite left-wing
enough.”
Enough said.
Like most locals, I’ve been steadily hitting the ATM
for the past weeks to amass some emergency cash.
I ventured out today for the first time since the
capital controls were installed yesterday to have a look around.
In Piraeus, I saw a queue of at least 30 people at a
branch of Alpha Bank, and about 10 people at the Bank of Piraeus, where I
waited.
The mood among the people waiting was pretty cool,
friendly and even throwing a few funny comments around to address the obvious
elephant in the room.
Older pensioners who were waiting, being used to
getting their money from the window, had dusted off their debit card and
received generous help from others on using it.
Experiences were shared on efforts to withdraw cash
the previous day, where the published daily withdraw limit of 60 EUR/day for
citizens was in effect (and confirmed by to me by the folks on line).
Today however, having presumably exhausted their
supply of 20 euro notes, this ATM machine imposed upon users a de-facto daily
withdraw limit of 50 Euros – since it was only dispensing 50 Euro notes.
As has also been reported, these capital controls do
not apply to foreign bank accounts; and I can confirm to be true as my foreign
bank card allowed me to withdraw my self-elected amount (of 300 EUR on this
occasion) without issue.
There is certainly an unusual feeling of calm in the
air. Car traffic resembles a
quieter “Sunday” level than a typical summer weekday going into the high
tourist season.
Citizens seem a bit more polite and helpful to one
another than before, with no shortage of clever comments to break the tension
on everyone’s mind being all in the same boat.
My first thought was to assume a newfound “keep calm
and soldier on” state of unity among the populace.
But this is Greece, not Northern Europe. the words
“quiet” and “calm” never share a sentence here.
No, this was something different, I believe, more of a
“laugh to keep from crying” state of mind.
And being very experienced with Greece and Greek
culture for my entire life, this realization was off-putting to say
the least.
I’ll forward along any additional observations during
my stay and leave you with one final, personal thought.
For all the talk and preaching of the risks one takes
by placing all their “flags” into the blind faith and trust of one government
in the abstract, it’s nothing like witnessing it firsthand.
Greece, right here – right now, is where that all
“gets real.”
But more importantly, all the benefits of a multiple
flags approach also “gets real” when you’re the guy who the crisis can’t touch.
I’m able to merely observe and participate without
worry, sleeping tight knowing that all that what I’ve worked to achieve in his
life is out of the reach of supranational, unelected & unaccountable EU
autocrats.
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