Products of the «Hellenic Monopoly»

                           By Professor Giorgos Piperopoulos

   «As historic, significant and unprecedented», were described in a smug praise by Professor Venizelos and Dr Papademos the days of the conclusion of the PSI (with the implementation of the CAC), which triggered the reaction of ISDA, and penalized Greece charging it with having created a «credit event". As a result the once supposedly financially thriving Greece, a country which in January 2001 was proudly lead into the EUROZONE group of economies by Prime Minister Professor Simitis and the Governor of the Bank of Greece (and current Prime Minister) Dr Papademos, is today in a "controlled, or orderly, Bankruptcy" and the interest on the 10 year Government bond hovers around 20%!..

   And so the delusionary world we Greeks were living in and buying the summer home, the 2nd and 3rd family car, vacations in exotic lands financed by generously handed out

Bank-and-credit card loans came to an abrupt end when Greece was forced by the troika into a rude awakening.
   My grandson is reaching his 6th birthday and, please do not consider this as an advertisement but see it as a reality, that describes him and all other kid his age who ceaselessly impress their grandparents with their dexterities in handling high technology products as on weekends they know how to turn on the TV set, put the CD properly in the CD player and enjoy in HD and vivid colour children’s films... Meanwhile other, a bit more advanced in age Toddlers already send messages on their mobile phones with their fingers moving at speeds that "scare" their grandparents...

   It occurred to me suddenly today to put a zero after the number 6 (the age of my grandson) in an attempt to take myself and those of you willing to follow me back to the 1950’s…There in the middle of the 20th century in a financially poor but proud land I remembered “kyra-Stasa” my late mother a 1922 refugee from Smyrna, Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey after the tragic Greek-Turkish war and my late father Panagiotis a refugee from Joseph Stalin’s Russia…

   I recall that they would send me to the neighbourhood grocery store to bring home salt, matches and "non-drinkable” alcohol ALL bearing on outer surface the inscription, hold your emotions my fellow grandparents, and open your ears you so you can learn something our children and grandchildren, “products of the Greek MONOPOLY!..”

   I beg the younger ones, our children and along with them my grandson and your grandchildren not to rush to criticism and start saying that this is how older people behave and that is how suddenly and out of nowhere they travel back to «memory lanes» with a sigh and every now and then with a with a smile or a tear on their faces… Memories and memory lanes always “beautified”.  Don’t tell me about it, ‘cause it is as it is!

   Luckily, my grandson and all our grandchildren at this age in Greece has not yet learned to read and they cannot ask us WHY, something that their parents should do to members of my generation! I see our children remaining quiet, not yet taking to the streets and holding us responsible for stealing the today and their children’s tomorrow and my heart is tight and heavy with yesteryear’s guilt, today's anger, tomorrow’s bitterness!
   Mama, Papa I kept asking 60 years ago as I was able to read “where is this factory, the “Greek MONOPOLY” that produces all these things that I bring from the grocer?
And I kept getting that monotonous response of the refugee Greek lady-from Smyrna and the refugee Greek gentleman from Russia:

   "When you grow up you’ll understand! ..."

Keep enjoying yourselves, all of you democratically elected politicians who govern us as a “coalition government” ironically made up from the two political parties who governed us from the collapse of the Junta in 1974 to today and brought us to the current economic drama…

   Keep enjoying yourselves all of you elected Members of Parliament and along with you the “appointed-not-elected” Prime Minister Dr Papademos cause our children are not yet in the awkward position of having to answer their children when in a few years with proper curiosity returning from the supermarket bringing home the things their parents ordered they will ask them:

   Mama, Papa where is this factory that makes the "products of the MEMORANDUM agreements based on the English law?"