Red tie and ties

Written by Kostas Stupas

1) Red tie and ties

Government officials do not like the “Syrians in a tie” description of its leftist, statist, and sometimes “populist” options.

Use of the term in the column, from the beginning of the previous four years, e.g. Mr. Vroutsis announced various ludicrous incentives for the return of highly qualified Greeks who had “escaped” abroad, causing friction and complaints.

As expected, a few Greeks living abroad returned. On the contrary, for various reasons, Balkan migrants who worked in Greece also left us.

In the context of the Clinton-inspired triangulation policy (excuse me, we turn to the left, we turn to the right, and from the two points we draw two straight lines that, based on the point where they intersect, form a triangle). ) The government during the epidemic period was then able to relatively overcome many rich countries in distributing benefits.

With the same-sex marriage equality law, he has been able to put Greece at the forefront of the 30 or so countries driving this kind of innovation.

I fear that measures to combat inflation and precision will be similarly inspired and targeted. I watch the headlines and news bulletins, such as price cuts of up to 30% on 3,000 products, and “pinch” if I live in a capitalist republic or one of the forgotten provinces of the Soviet Union.

Here is an image of the report:

“So far prices have been reduced on 3,900 essential products

Yesterday, Mr. Skrikas, on the first day of the implementation of the measures, visited a supermarket and declared: “The measures we have taken are permanent, structural and aimed at correcting decades of structural distortions in the market. Our goal is to help all citizens confront the major problem of accuracy and achieve a lasting decline.” In inflation.

The fact is that if we compare the prices of international products sold in Greece with their counterparts in other European countries, on average we will find higher prices.

Politicians, especially from the opposition and especially from the left, like to criticize accuracy, accusing the government in question of not exercising controls and allowing its reckless speculation.

I do not disagree at all that speculation, greed and arrogance are human nature and therefore creations like business. I do not believe that any attempt to control prices can produce the desired results. History teaches us that the opposite usually happens.

Supervision and pricing may have some consequences temporarily, but they are harmful in the medium term. If some benefit from the presence of high profit margins and exploit them, the solution can only be offered by competitors who will try to win shares at lower prices and lower profit margins.

What the government should do is implement antitrust policies and get tough on those who try to create monopoly situations.

If fuel is the most expensive in Europe, for example. This cost is unlikely to be passed on to the producers, importers, distributors and traders who produce, store, cool and transport.

The same happens with indirect taxes, rising pension costs, closed professions, etc.

The column believes that inflationary pressures over the past two years have a structural nature and are due to phenomena such as:

Declining globalization.

Growing geopolitical tensions.

An increase in demand results in an increase in public and private debt (subsidies).

Declining investment has seen growth in global commodity production in recent years.

Increase in energy costs due to the energy transition.

Increase in labor costs due to demographic aging etc.

State interference in corporate pricing policy prompts companies with low or marginal rice margins to withdraw from the market. This weakens competition and strengthens monopolistic positions. This phenomenon has not only been observed in Greece in recent years.

Historically, price controls have led to shelf shortages, product concealment, and the black market phenomenon.

The experience of the material poverty of the peoples of Soviet economies does not seem to have become a lesson for anyone in the West to abandon the free market and everything else that the world has made dominant in the last four hundred years.

Competition and oversupply can reduce profit margins and eliminate speculation. If prices were set by governments and not the market, we would be immigrants to Eastern Europe and not the other way around.

2) Private universities

Good morning,

I hear different arguments about the necessity of establishing private universities. However, I have not heard the main reason for its creation. For many decades, teenagers have entered schools and universities based on the points they get on national exams, which is often a matter of luck. As a result, children who want to attend one school end up in another. This is the main reason why young people travel abroad. Someone wants to become a doctor and ends up as a kindergarten teacher.

If there were private universities in Greece, everyone would go to the school they wanted and thus be able to determine their career here in Greece, without having to travel abroad with all that it takes.

I hope the above observation will be communicated to the world as I believe it is the most important reason it was created at this point.

Please, if it is published, do not mention my name

sincerely,

T.S.

Pharmacist

[email protected]