Silly ruses don’t fool anyone
Everyone understands how difficult it is and how much pressure ministers must be under when they are responsible for pushing through changes and reforms that will be extremely painful for society, such as the most recent proposed changes to retirement laws and the social security system. There is, however, no excuse for certain ministers behaving like smart alecks or using cheap ruses to trick the people into believing that they are the good guys. One recent example is that of officials at the Labor Ministry trying to appear as though they have scored a huge coup against demands by International Monetary Fund and European Union on issues that are not even part of the memorandum and then turning around and submitting an amendment in Parliament toward increasing pensions, knowing full well that there is no money in state coffers to make this happen. Whoever believes that such ridiculous smoke-blowing is going to make the people of Greece accept labor and social security reforms more easily is sadly, and badly, mistaken. All such ruses achieve is to drive another nail into the coffin of politicians’ credibility.
