Greece Poverty in a time of economic diktat

[xchrom]

http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/1460301-poverty-time-economic-diktat

In a scene that is played out daily, at midday the silent crowd gathers outside the gates of the Athens City Hall which is only a stone’s throw from Omonia Square. How many are there? A hundred? Even more?

“In the evening, there are twice as many,” sighs Xanthi, a young woman employed by the City Hall “to manage the crowd.” The atmosphere is tense when the gates finally open, and a long queue forms for a stand distributing diet Coke and what looks like mashed potato in plastic dishes.

There are shouts and arguments. Everything has to happen very quickly: the stand will only be open for half an hour.

Amid the down-and-outs and the pensioners in threadbare clothes, there are members of a new category of soup kitchen customers who are clearly not used to scrounging for food, most of whom refuse to talk to journalists. “They are ashamed,” explains Sotiris, aged 55, who found himself living on welfare after 20 years spent working for a security company. “But in Greece, unemployment benefit only lasts for a year,” he reminds us.

[JDPriestly]

1. The Germans (and the bankers) are about to learn the meaning of the old expression,

"You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip."

[xchrom]

2. +1