Agora
Posts in Greece
Growth, recovery, change and other words lost in the wind
Unable to devalue their currency during this crisis, eurozone policy makers have feverishly cheapened words instead. Over the last few years the value of words like solidarity, reform, competitiveness, adjustment and relief has plummeted.
Contributor: Nick Malkoutzis
Categories: Politics (387), Economy (331), Greece (498)
‘We’re dying to pay our taxes’
Like thousands of citizens, Nikolas Elliniadis had left it to deadline day to go to his bank, in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city, to pay the first of six instalments of Greece’s new property tax, the latest levy to hit a population beleaguered after five years of austerity.
Contributor: Damian Mac Con Uladh
Categories: Society (142), Greece (498)
Samaras seeks vote of confidence and moment of history
Pop quiz: When was the last time Greece held elections at the end of the government’s four-year term? It was in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, F.W. de Klerk started dismantling apartheid in South Africa, Soviet troops left Afghanistan, Chinese students demonstrated and were shot in Tiananmen Square and dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu was executed in Romania. It is right up there with the world’s historic events.
Contributor: Nick Malkoutzis
Categories: Politics (387), Greece (498)
Greek debt: A case of learned helplessness?
The concept of learned helplessness was accidentally discovered by psychologists Seligman and Maier back in 1967. They initially observed helpless behaviour in dogs that were conditioned to expect an electrical shock after hearing a tone and they made no attempts to escape, even though they could avoid the shock by simply jumping over a low barrier. They developed a cognitive expectation that nothing they did would prevent or eliminate the shocks.
Contributor: Yiannis Mouzakis
Categories: Europe (282), Economy (331), Greece (498)
Does Greece need a third programme?
During his visit to Berlin this week, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras repeatedly emphasised that Greece does not require a third financial support programme. In his conversation with Chancellor Angela Merkel he highlighted that the Greek sovereign was able to successfully return to international bond markets in April after a three-year forced hiatus.
Contributor: Jens Bastian
Categories: Europe (282), Economy (331), Greece (498)