Greek Crisis Seperates Children From Parents.

[Big Orange]

With the Greek economic crisis grinding on for quite a while now, with Greece being a deep hairline crack in the Eurozone, the human damage is now really emerging to the surface:

The Greek parents too poor to care for their children

Greece's financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all - their children.

One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils. "I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her," it read. "Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her mother." In the last two months Father Antonios, a young Orthodox priest who runs a youth centre for the city's poor, has found four children on his doorstep - including a baby just days old. Another charity was approached by a couple whose twin babies were in hospital being treated for malnutrition, because the mother herself was malnourished and unable to breastfeed. Cases like this are shocking a country where family ties are strong, and failure to look after children is socially unacceptable - they feel to Greeks like stories from the Third World, rather than their own capital city.

One of the children cared for by Father Antonios is Natasha, a bright two-year-old brought to his centre by her mother a few weeks ago. The woman said she was unemployed and homeless and needed help - but before staff could offer her support she had vanished, leaving her daughter behind. "Over the last year we have hundreds of cases of parents who want to leave their children with us - they know us and trust us," Father Antonios says. "They say they do not have any money or shelter or food for their kids, so they hope we might be able to provide them with what they need." Requests of this kind were not unknown before the crisis - but Father Antonios has never until now come across children being simply abandoned.

Handouts

One woman driven by poverty to give up her child was Maria, a single mother who lost her job and was unemployed for more than a year. "Every night I cry alone at home, but what can I do? It hurt my heart, but I didn't have a choice," she says. She spent her days looking for work, sometimes well into the evening and that often meant leaving eight-year-old Anastasia alone for hours at a time. The two of them lived on food handouts from the church. Maria lost 25kg. In the end she decided to put Anastasia into foster care with a charity called SOS Children's Villages. "I can suffer through it but why should she have to?" she asks. She now has a job in a cafe, but makes just 20 euros (£16) a day.

She sees Anastasia about once a month, and hopes to take her back when her economic situation improves - but when that might be she has no idea. SOS Children's Villages' director of social work, Stergios Sifnyos, says the charity is not accustomed to taking children from families for economic reasons and does not want to. "The relationship between Maria and Anastasia is very close. You can say you cannot see any problem, [any reason] why this child has to be far away from her mother," he says. "But it's very difficult for her to feel comfortable to take back the child when she is not sure she will [still] have a job the next days."

'Act of violence'

In the past when SOS Children's Villages took children into its care, the cause was mostly drug and alcohol addiction in the family. Now the main factor is poverty. Another charity, The Smile of a Child, also focused in the past on cases involving child abuse and neglect. It too is now catering for the destitute of Athens. Its chief psychologist Stefanos Alevizos, says that when a parent puts a child into care, the child feels its entire foundations have been shaken. "They experience the separation as an act of violence because they cannot understand the reasons for it," he says. But The Smile of a Child's Sofia Kouhi says the biggest tragedy, in her eyes, is that those parents who ask for their kids to be taken into care may be the ones who love their children the most.

"It is very sad to see the pain in their heart that they will leave their children, but they know it is for the best, at least for this period," she says. Father Antonios disagrees. He believes that no matter how poor parents may be, the child is always better off with its family. "These families will be judged for abandoning their children," he says. "We can provide a child with food and shelter, but the truth is that the biggest need any child has is to feel the love of its parents." The names of children in this report have been changed to protect their identities.

Damaged safety net

• *Greece's crisis has caused more poverty than its welfare system is equipped to deal with, so charities fill the gap
  *However, donations are down and charities now have to pay taxes they were once exempt from
  *"Charity associations like ours are doing 50% of the work that the Greek state should be doing and instead of thanking us they are penalising us," says director of SOS Children's Villages, George Protopapas
  *Most cases of families giving up children occur in Athens, where traditional family and neighbourhood ties are diluted

BBC

Still, at least German companies had bumper exports...

[mr friendly guy]

What is with ze jibe against ze Germans?

[LadyTevar]

My heart goes out to the families who think this is the only way to help their children. Had I the extra money, I would gladly donate to those charities trying to fill in the gaps.

However, I can look around West Virginia and see families in similar positions, where only CHiPs and FoodStamps provide food for hungry children, and where food pantries all over are suffering shortages to catch those who make too much money for FoodStamps, but not enough to pay bills and buy groceries too.

[Skgoa]

Obviously, those lazy greek parents are living beyond their means.

What is with ze jibe against ze Germans?

There is a sense in Germany that the crisis "isn't that bad", because we massively profit from the european periphery country's economic weakness and might have even had a deliberate role in bringing it on.

[mr friendly guy]

There is a sense in Germany that the crisis "isn't that bad", because we massively profit from the european periphery country's economic weakness and might have even had a deliberate role in bringing it on.

Just for interest, how is Germany proposed to have done it? That is how did they bring it on?

[Spoonist]

There is a sense in Germany that the crisis "isn't that bad", because we massively profit from the european periphery country's economic weakness and might have even had a deliberate role in bringing it on.

Just for interest, how is Germany proposed to have done it? That is how did they bring it on?

Obviously by forcing Greece to fake their budget numbers. Then they had the audacity to not increase their salaries when the south did. Then to top it of they most evily lended their own money at bargain rates and took cuts to their own stuff just to spite them...

[Simon_Jester]

The Greek government has been under pressure from core European nations, Germany among them, to enact austerity budgets. Even if the austerity budget is necessary, it is not unreasonable to hold Germany partly responsible for the consequences of the austerity. This is one of the consequences.

Does this make Merkel's government evil? I'm not saying that. Does it make Germany's actions in any way unreasonable? Not saying that either. But it seems fair-minded to me, that they would be partly blamed for a result they actively lobbied the Greek government to bring about, and from which they derive some indirect benefits.

[Spoonist]

Ah, so you are saying that they should be blamed when they want the greeks to keep their promises?

[Simon_Jester]

Don't be silly.

Spoonist, I'm sure you're very familiar with commentary that looks at the prosperity of the First World, the poverty of the Third World, and the fact that the First World profits from the poverty of the Third World. This is normal, morally sensitive people talk about it all the time. You've probably read dozens of condemnations of the attitude by which rich nations care more about collecting their debts from Argentina than they do about making sure Argentina has a working economy. I know I've seen plenty of critiques like that.

Well, this is the same logic, applied to the internal politics of Europe. Germany is a creditor nation which is attempting to make sure it gets its money back from Greece. Greece is a nation teetering on the edge of bankruptcy; to pay back the money will mean suffering for the Greek people, it really is as simple as that.

But Germany wants to make sure they get their money back, like moneylenders throughout history. This is normal. So is Germany being any more of a villain than any other country in the same position? No.

Is it still relevant to point out that the Germans are doing rather well as a result of an economic situation that is pushing Greece to the brink of collapse? I think so. Is it relevant to point out that the Germans are pressuring Greece to do things that make the plight of the Greek people worse, rather than better? Again, I think so. There are very real issues of national sovereignty and economic hierarchy tied up in the current EU debt crisis, Spoonist; trying to pretend they aren't there or aren't relevant doesn't do anyone any favors.

[Spoonist]

Sorry Simon, I'd disagree.

If you wish to argue what the lenders should have demanded instead from the lendees - that is fine, or aid etc - again fine. But trying to villify lenders like that is just counterproductive. It has led to great division amongst those who really need to be united. And germany et al has not demanded all their money back with interest like a loan shark - instead its the financial ministers of the EU together which have demanded that the lenders bring back fiscal responsibility and balance to their budgets.

Then your exploitation comparison is flawed. When the "first world" exploits the "third world" they do so by design and out of a power disparity. That means that the exploited in that case have not been contributing to the exploitation and that the exploiter use whatever means necessary to continue the disparity. Now, one could argue how much of that is true exploitation and how much is business as usual.
However you are comparing that to a situation which was not planned by germany et al, which was created by the countries fiscal irresponsibilities and corruption and which the better off countries have been trying to aid.
Agreed that it is totally unfair to the greek public but to put that back on the lending nations (of which germany had the best rates and cash - hence being the biggest lender) is very strange. Should they lend money without a quid pro quo? Should they let the countries collapse? Neither is rational nor logical to demand. How come the public in those other lending countries are not as bitter of germany as those of the greeks? Its all propaganda of which you have become an accomplice. There are historical reasons why Germany specificly is being the target of the bitterness and it has nothing to do with the current situation. If they had chosen a different target, like the EU financial council or whatever, then the bitterness wouldn't be so sweet.

[Simon_Jester]

Spoonist, if you read back, I would hope you will see that no one said something like "the plight of Greece is Germany's fault." There is a reason I, for one, did not say this: I know that Germany did not create Greece's problem. The great bulk of Greece's problems come from the Greeks' own government, and from various historical factors which have little or nothing to do with Germany.

And yet I do not think it is out of line to observe, to mention, that yes, Germany is doing rather well for itself while Greece is doing poorly (which may reflect well on Germany and badly on Greece)... But also that Germany is helping the EU's financiers dictate terms to Greece which are punishing to the Greek people, which does not reflect so well on Germany, or so badly on Greece.

However, it is really not a question of making Germany into the villainous mustache-twirling Evil Banker stereotype who's cruelly foreclosing Greece's mortgage over some petty technicality. Germany is not the villain of this story; the financial policies of the past ten to twenty years don't leave anyone in a good position to claim some special position of 'good' or 'evil.'

Because of that, the things I am talking about can- should- be said without claiming that Greece's problems are a German invention, or that Germany could make the problems go away easily, or that Germany is acting in an unusually greedy or cruel way.

And I think that you perceive allegations like that- as if I were claiming these things, which I am not. Which is putting you on the defensive and distorting the discussion more toward the level of German responsibility than it ought to go.
_____________

Now, I know that for historical reasons, the German reputation in Europe is a brittle thing, one which they have spent the past sixty years carefully rebuilding. But there has to be a limit to brittleness- a point at which we recognize that yes, it is possible for Germany to profit from the misfortunes of others without this reflecting anything other than the fact that Germany is rich, with a well-managed economy, and a powerful financial sector, while countries like Greece are less rich, have a not-so-well-managed economy, and make a habit of borrowing from other people's powerful financial sectors to make ends meet.

This doesn't make Germany worse than any other country of comparable wealth and power, but it must be examined objectively, because one of the outstanding questions the entire recession has raised for Europe is that of the clash between sovereignty and economic unity.

Before the EU, a country like Greece would have declared bankruptcy and gone through a localized recession without causing too much harm to the rest of Europe. Now, that is no longer the case, so the rest of the EU powers are not willing to stand by and let it happen- which is reasonable from their point of view.

But how does that square with the idea that Greece is a sovereign state, or that the Greek government's first duty is to the people of Greece, rather than to a clique of financiers and foreign banks? How do we resolve this apparent contradiction and move forward, with a solution everyone can live with?

It's a difficult problem, one I know I don't have a solution for, but I think it needs to be faced squarely. And part of facing this issue is recognizing that if we view the EU as a confederation of individual nation-states that all pursue their own interests within the EU framework, the current debt policies are creating definite winners and losers. Germany is one of the winners; Greece is one of the losers. So far, at least.

Pretending that this is not the case, or responding to it by a counterattack: "What, you think we wanted this to happen?" dodges the important question of sovereignty and the relationships between the EU, the national governments, and the people they rule.

[Terralthra]

On that point, it is perhaps worth noting that Greece and the rest of the periphery's inclusion in the EuroZone has pushed the Euro's value down below what it would otherwise have (due in no small part to their weaker economies, I'm sure), and a cheaper Euro has contributed to the boom in Germany's export of manufactured goods.

[Skgoa]

There is a sense in Germany that the crisis "isn't that bad", because we massively profit from the european periphery countries' economic weakness and might have even had a deliberate role in bringing it on.

Just for interest, how is Germany proposed to have done it? That is how did they bring it on?

By more or less (alledgedly) luring those countries into opening their markets to german goods, while chaining them to our currency and our standards.

[mr friendly guy]

@Simon just for interest, what happens if it is a poorer nation calling on the richer nation to honour its debts. Lets say a second world nation, cough cough China cough asks a rich first world nation, cough US cough to honour its debts. Obviously this doesn't appear to be a first world nation profiting from the poverty of a third world one.

[Simon_Jester]

A poor nation may run into a heavy burden of debt for more blameless reasons. It may invest over-heavily in projects aimed at development, which may fail. It may find its citizens clamoring for the kinds of benefits found in richer societies (like a social safety net), try to provide them, and fail. It may try to use low taxes to attract industry and other businesses to its shores, and find that it can't make ends meet that way.

Richer nations, which can more easily afford the basic necessities of life and good government, have fewer excuses. For example, the US would not have a severe debt crisis if it had not chosen to have one, by simultaneously cutting taxes and spending more money. A little common sense in high office would have shown that this could not work, and was not working. But this common sense was not to be found, and so now we owe a lot of money to foreigners. Such is life.

There is also a moral imbalance here- to quote Jon Stewart via Shroom, standing up for the powerless is not the same as standing up for the powerful. If China creates an economic crisis in the US by recalling debt, that will probably not force many starving mothers to abandon their children to orphanages because the orphanage might be able to feed them. The US has a bigger cushion before being sunk into true, deep misery.

[Spoonist]

I agree with the sentiment but

Spoonist, if you read back, I would hope you will see that no one said something like "the plight of Greece is Germany's fault." There is a reason I, for one, did not say this: I know that Germany did not create Greece's problem.

Hence why I pointed out your flawed analogy thingie instead.
You were comparing this lending with 1st world exploitation of 3rd world poverty - a very poor choice in context - which was why you got the reaction you did. My whole response was directed at the implications of that.
If you instead would have had this more reasonable and rational approach I would have reacted differently.
But you didn't. So when you repeat such propaganda you should expect to be called on that.

[Thanas]

[img]http://www.abload.de
/thumb/bradley_whitford_26093kjcl.jpg[/img] Obviously, those lazy greek parents are living beyond their means.

How about you apologize for an ad hominem attack against me right now, asshole?

[Skgoa]

I am sorry. That was supposed to be a joke.

[Simon_Jester]

I agree with the sentiment but

Spoonist, if you read back, I would hope you will see that no one said something like "the plight of Greece is Germany's fault." There is a reason I, for one, did not say this: I know that Germany did not create Greece's problem.

Hence why I pointed out your flawed analogy thingie instead.
You were comparing this lending with 1st world exploitation of 3rd world poverty - a very poor choice in context - which was why you got the reaction you did. My whole response was directed at the implications of that.
If you instead would have had this more reasonable and rational approach I would have reacted differently.
But you didn't. So when you repeat such propaganda you should expect to be called on that.

Spoonist, I don't think the analogy is that bad.

It's very common, and has been for a long time, for rich nations to loan poor nations money. And for the rich nation to pressure the poor nation into changing policies to make sure the money gets paid back on time- to enact austerity, to hold off on popular but expensive programs that don't contribute to paying down the debt, and so on. It's natural to want poor countries to be good creditors, but there's a fine line between "trying to make sure I get my money back" and "economic exploitation." And from the point of view of the average person in the country that owes the money, there isn't a lot of difference. Either way, they end up being the ones out of work and struggling to feed their children.

Exploitation isn't always a clear-cut case of predation, either. 18th and 19th century colonial powers often entered exploitative relations with their colonies by the consent or even at the invitation of the local rulers. Indian potentates would invite the East India Company in to dispose of a rival, native tribes would ally with the white man to defeat a hated enemy, rulers would borrow large sums of money and hire foreigners to train their military, then find themselves dependent on the foreigners' goodwill, and so on.

Sometimes this happened... almost by accident; a trading company would make a series of short term moves, each intended to slightly increase its own economic standing, and soon found itself in charge of a new territory almost by default. The largest empire in history, that of Britain, did much of its expansion during times when the average British citizen did not feel any great desire for imperial conquests.

It's easy to wind up in an exploitative position over someone else, if you started with more power than them and aren't careful about how you use it. Germany's wealth and strong, well-managed economy give it some of that kind of power compared to some of the nations on the EU periphery.

This doesn't mean Germany engineered the problem Greece creates- but if the EU is to be a collective enterprise among equal states and not a machine for transferring wealth and strength from one bunch of states to another, we need to keep track of who's benefiting from what policies and why. As I said, the Greek debt crisis ties into all the issues of sovereignty and of national versus European interests that have been simmering ever since the EU was founded.

[Broomstick]

My heart goes out to the families who think this is the only way to help their children. Had I the extra money, I would gladly donate to those charities trying to fill in the gaps.

However, I can look around West Virginia and see families in similar positions, where only CHiPs and FoodStamps provide food for hungry children, and where food pantries all over are suffering shortages to catch those who make too much money for FoodStamps, but not enough to pay bills and buy groceries too.

Before those programs extremely poor parents in the US were also know to abandon their children to charities when they could no longer feed them. Depression-era stories of children being left somewhere and never seeing their parents again are heart-breaking in the extreme. Even when, as adults, the people who were left on someone's doorstep can understand intellectually the reasons why this was done, the emotional hurt never goes away.

[Big Orange]

What is with ze jibe against ze Germans?

Here's why Germany manufacturing companies prospered on exporting things to economically weaker EU countries that essentially paid themselves into the ground (large image warning). And I'm talking about faceless German corporations, not the ordinary German people that they're exploiting - Germany achieved its unfair economy advantage and kept on being abnormally competitive in relation to the PIIGS because German wages remained level, in addition to the growth of lower paid part-time work.

But as deceptive as economic success in Germany is, the German economy is still great in comparison to the absolute mayhem in Spain and Greece, etc. And in Greece, with parents dumping their kids, its economic problems are causing irreparable damage to the social fabric and the development of the children. Of course as Simon-Jester says, this is happening on too big and slow a scale to be the direct result of some easily blamed masterminds, however there has been a staggering amount of naivety. Why would France and Germany be part of a currency that also gets circulated and creamed off by organised crime as well?!

[Thanas]

Your first link shows nothing and I have to say your jibe against Germany was pretty stupid. I

[Big Orange]

Your first link shows nothing

Sorry, here it is.

and I have to say your jibe against Germany was pretty stupid. I

I'm not taking a dig at Germany as a whole, but the German manfacturing corporations, which recklessly exported a lot of their stuff to the relatively impoverished PIIGS who have now spent themselves into economic ruin and ultimately shouldn't have joined Euro. You seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking what's good for a large corporation is good for the general populace, and that's not necessarily always the case (such as some German workers who have low wages), though German industry seems better managed and more preserved than American or British industiries have been in recent decades (with more harmony between labour unions and executive boards).

And this article blatantly states that Germany industry profits from a weak Euro, making their exports to outside the EU also competitive:

Europe's Crisis Is Germany's Blessing
Its neighbors may be suffering, but the euro crisis has created conditions that actually benefit the German economy. Not only is the government enjoying the windfall of negative interest rates on bonds, but unemployment is down and exports are booming.

It's every debtor's dream. When asked for a loan, the bank not only agrees, but actually pays the borrower for their patronage. It sounds like a fairy tale, as though the laws of the market economy had been suspended. But on Monday it really happened.

The debtor in this case was the German government, which borrowed €3.9 billion ($5 billion) for the next six months at the unbelievable interest rate of -0.01 percent. Even the German Finance Agency was stunned. "This has never happened before," a spokesperson said.

The Finance Ministry should be pleased. In the last four years, they've had to shell out around 1.8 percent in interest for such bonds. But recently even interest rates on German bonds with longer maturities have decreased significantly. The federal government is saving a bundle.

The reason for the windfall? Amid the ongoing euro crisis, Germany is one of the few borrowers that are still regarded as a safe haven. Many investors would rather lend the government money at bargain-basement rates than risk losses.

Half of Europe Suffers While Germany Profits

Other countries can only fantasize about such a bonanza. Italy is currently being forced to pay record interest rates of some 7 percent on 10-year government bonds because investors lack confidence in the government in Rome. Questions remain over whether Prime Minister Mario Monti will succeed in reducing the government's €1.9 trillion mountain of debt without stifling the economy. Meanwhile bond yields in crisis-stricken countries like Spain and Ireland have also risen sharply.

It has become a rule of the euro crisis: While a number of euro-zone countries suffer, Germany profits. The crisis may slow economic growth in Germany, but there are also a raft of crisis-related mechanisms that help the country profit at the expense of other nations. As long as a big euro-zone crash doesn't materialize, this cushions the effects of the downturn for Germany.

A recent projection by the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research found that the economies of France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Portugal and Cyprus would likely shrink in 2012. The German economy, on the other hand, is still expected to grow by 0.4 percent this year.

The imbalance between Germany and many other euro-zone countries is most apparent on the job market, though. Euro-zone unemployment now averages 10.3 percent, but in Germany the figure sank to 7.1 percent for 2011. Last year, just under 3 million unemployed people were registered out of 82 million residents in Germany. By contrast, the number of unemployed in Spain recently reached 4.42 million out of just 45 million residents.

German Firms Profit from Weak Euro

As mass protests form in Spain due to high unemployment among young people, Germany is benefiting from an influx of new skilled professionals. An increasing number of southern Europeans looking for work are heading north to prosperous Germany. The number of Greek immigrants rose by 84 percent in the first half of 2011 to reach some 4,100 people, according to the Federal Statistical Office. The total number of immigrants rose by 19 percent year-on-year for that time period, reaching 435,000.

But that's not all. Indirectly, Germany also profits from a simple symptom of the crisis -- the weak euro, which has fallen to about $1.27, its lowest value since Sept. 2010.

For German companies, the sinking euro acts as a kind of crisis buffer. While it reduces demand for German products within the euro zone, these make up only around 40 percent of the country's exports. But for the rest of the world, a weak euro means cheaper German products, which means they're more competitive.

Indeed, German exports grew by 2.5 percent month-on-month in November, reaching €94.9 billion. Compared to a year earlier, exports were up by an impressive 8.3 percent. The crisis notwithstanding, exports for 2011 as a whole surpassed the historic trillion-euro level, a benchmark not even reached during the boom year of 2008.

The Spiegel

[Thanas]

I'm not taking a dig at Germany as a whole, but the German manfacturing corporations, which recklessly exported a lot of their stuff to the relatively impoverished PIIGS who have now spent themselves into economic ruin and ultimately shouldn't have joined Euro. You seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking what's good for a large corporation is good for the general populace, and that's not necessarily always the case (such as some German workers who have low wages), though German industry seems better managed and more preserved than American or British industiries have been in recent decades (with more harmony between labour unions and executive boards).

What I take from those long-winded sentences is that you think selling stuff is bad and that Germany should not have sold to others. The answer to that is that this is obviously nonsense. First of all, if Germany had not sold to them somebody else would have. Second, for over a decade people were yelling at Germany to make a profit. Remember the "sick man of Europe" talk? Well, now there is one....and now it suddenly is a bad thing?

And this article blatantly states that Germany industry profits from a weak Euro, making their exports to outside the EU also competitive:

Sure. It also forgets to mention that nations that depend a lot on Imports also profit from the German economy, seeing as how the Euro as a whole is a stronger currency than their previous ones before. The Euro is weak now, but back when it was almost 2 dollars per Euro, guess what countries profited the most from that? .