When choosing a candidate for a key state sector post, the sensible thing to do is to pick someone with the requisite qualifications. But in Greece, it’s the party acolytes that get the job.

Common sense dictates that the people who manage properties worth billion of euros must be experts with good knowledge of how the stock market functions. In Greece, though, it’s those with a good grasp of party backstage shenanigans. Across the world, pension funds are run by people who can differentiate between shares and bonds. In Greece, it’s the ruling party cronies. The recent scandal could have been avoided had even these government-appointed managers been equipped with a bit of common sense: When you select someone for a job, you make sure that he at least has some understanding of the subject. In Greece, these seats are handed out to political friends as the spoils of war. Unless we do the basics, we cannot be sure about the future of funds in a market with derivatives products.