WHATEVER happened to our sensitive, caring, compassionate, socially responsible and charitable banks that help children with special needs, give millions to quake victims and organise charity events for muscular dystrophy sufferers?
Whatever happened to our public-spirited banks that put the national interest above their balance sheet, made donations to the defence fund, gave Christmas presents to orphans, helped old ladies cross the road and generously issued us with a dozen different credit cards every year?
The selfish behaviour of our big banks over the last week has caused bitter disappointment and disillusionment to everyone. Banking with a human face and social conscience, which we were lucky enough to enjoy for many years, was finally laid to rest this week, sending shock waves across the Republic.
Despite the valiant attempts of our good friend Charilaos to keep this noble tradition alive, the new generation of greedy bank bosses chose to let the economy sink into recession rather than see a reduction in their huge profits and personal bonuses.
Their only concession was to delay the introduction of the hikes for seven weeks and that was just to get the political parties, whose moaning had been activated by the wily Charilaos, off their back.
But once the recession starts to bite and the high interest rates make it impossible for businesses and individuals to make their loan repayments, the head honchos of the banks promised Charilaos they would show leniency. They did not say how, but I think they might waive the legal fees when securing a winding up order against a business.
WHEN the not-so-caring banks sent letters to their customers last month informing them that the interest rate on their loan would go up by 1.5 per cent, many felt that the bank was violating the loan contract it had signed. Many people asked how it could unilaterally change the conditions of a legal contract.
The fact is that in the contract we sign but never read when we want a loan, there is a provision which says the interest on a loan can be altered if there is a change in market conditions. This was why the letter from the bank, announcing the hike to its customers, cited “changes in market conditions and the deterioration of the world economic situation.”
On receiving the letter, one restaurateur wrote back informing the bank that, if anything, the interest on his loan should be cut because his business had suffered from changes in market conditions – two new eateries and a café had opened on his street, taking away many of his customers, while the price of foodstuffs had soared, eroding his profit margins.
It goes without saying that his letter was taken as a joke, because, as everyone knows, changes in market conditions only affect the banks, which is the only party that can make changes to a loan contract.
AT LEAST the banks were polite enough to inform their customers of the plans to rip them off in writing. The co-ops, which are in deep financial merde, also raised interest rates, but they did not bother informing customers in writing. They just placed small display adverts in the newspapers, announcing the hikes.
Some of these ads appeared on the pages with the funeral notices, which was quite fitting. Co-ops are doomed if they do not raise their interest rates, because unlike the banks, the only money they make to pay running costs is from the difference in interest between deposit and loan accounts. The difference has been tiny this year, after Bank of Piraeus increased interest on deposits and everyone followed suit.
Of course our people-friendly government has not mentioned anything about the co-ops raising interest rates because most of them are controlled by AKEL which sees them as socialist banks, serving (or fleecing when market conditions change) the proletariat and the farmers.
A WORD of praise is on order for our friend Charilaos who has done almost everything within his limited powers to prevent the banks from raising interest rates. His ploy of getting the populist political parties to oppose the hike was a masterstroke, as it forced the banks to put the hike off for a few weeks.
Now all he needs to do is get a few of the party bruisers to keep going on about the banks’ greed and ruthlessness on radio and TV shows, warning that the higher rates would make people homeless, bankrupt businesses, force women to go on the game to feed their children, terminate the university studies of intelligent kids etc. Unrelenting negative publicity just might force the banks to re-consider.
Of course this will depend on whether the TV stations are willing to give air-play to the crusading politicians and jeopardise their advertising budgets from the banks which amount to hundreds of thousands of euros every year.
THE RESCUE plan for the economy was finally announced on Friday, after a meeting at the People’s Palace under comrade presidente. It made you wonder whether the government was taking the piss when it announced it would spend €52 million to rescue the economy from the slump.
Of this grand amount, €40 million will go towards construction projects in order to help the construction sector (we can look forward to more dug-up roads and traffic congestion) and €12 million will be used on advertising the People’s Republic as a tourist destination abroad. And hey presto – the economy will avoid the recession.
Our presidente made it clear that social policy would not be sacrificed for the sake of the economy. “I said again and again, the state will not take (presumably food, he didn’t specify) from the mouths of pensioners to give elsewhere. Neither will it take from large families or the disabled or the low-paid, we will use the money seriously and sparingly.”
WAS THE decision, revealed by Politis on Thursday, to spend some €200 million on tanks and missiles for the National Guard, part of the policy to “use money seriously and sparingly”? How serious is it to spend €200 million of the taxpayer’s money on weapons we do not need, with recession looming and state revenue certain to be lower than forecasted?
Are there government plans to fight the recession with T-80 tanks and anti-aircraft missiles? Even if this is the case, it’s a funny way to prepare for the settlement of the Cyprob, which our presidente is committed to. It is lunatic decisions like these which make you realise that the Ethnarch was not such a bad presidente after all. He had his faults, but wasting our money on weapons of mass commission, was not one of them.
AN UBER-PATRIOT speaking on the uber-patriotic morning radio show, censured Politis for its revelation because it could jeopardise the purchase. In the past, as he explained, when our government’s plans to purchase weapons were made public, the Turks would go to the supplier and put pressure for them not to sell the guns to us.
In the past, if claims that the sale would threaten peace on the island did not work, Turks would tell suppliers that they would make a much bigger order in the future, on condition the sale to us fell through. It worked with the Chinese a few years ago and Turkey saved the taxpayer tens of millions of euros. Her intervention, this time, is even more necessary as a lot more of the tax-schmuck’s moolah would be wasted if those mean-looking generals do nothing.
THE MONEY saved could pay for housing grants for refugees whose numbers could be significantly increased in the next few months if the comrade fulfils his electoral promise to give refugee status to the children of refugee women.
He is currently under pressure from refugee women to amend the blatantly sexist law which stipulates that only fathers can pass their refugee status on to their kids. The People’s Republic is the only state in the world in which you do not have to be forcibly kicked out of your home to be considered a refugee. It is a hereditary right.
Refugees are mass-produced by the state through the issuing of an ID card, so long as your father had been forcibly kicked out of his home by the Turks. This is why, the number of refugees is steadily increasing, instead of declining, 34 years after the invasion. And if the law is amended there will soon be twice as many refugees as there were in 1974.
ACCORDING to the president of the Movement of Refugee and Displaced Mothers, Markella Isaia-Tsiakka, a bigger number of refugees would be in the interest of the Republic. “The increase in the number of refugees would strengthen the negotiating position of the Cyprus Republic in the struggle for a just settlement.”
If the state refused to satisfy the mothers’ demand, the case would be taken to the European Court of Human Rights, said Ms Isaia-Tsiakka. Going through the Human Rights Charter, we could not find any mention of the human right to refugeedom, but we may have been looking in the wrong place.
THE UN Secretary-General’s special envoy Alexander Downer, reported Offsite, is a director of an intelligence gathering firm, Hakluyt & Co, which was set up in 1995 by two former MI6 agents. The company, according to Offsite, sells information to companies, regarding government decisions and plans; in the past it had been passing information to Shell and BP about the activities of Greenpeace.
The electronic newsletter, asked whether there was a conflict of interest and suggested that Downer had an obligation to explain what the connection was between Hakluyt and MI6 and CIA. Asked by hacks to comment, Downer said he was a member of an advisory board of Hakluyt and that once a year he would attend meetings at which members gave their views on international matters in different parts of the world.
By Friday, Simerini columnists were arguing that the Aussie had a “moral obligation” to resign from one of the two posts because there was a blatant conflict of interest.
“He cannot be the member of an organisation that sells information and at the same time be in charge of the dialogue for a solution of the Cyprus problem,” wrote Costakis Antoniou.
Neither Costakis nor Savvas should worry. Even if Downer wanted to sell info about the talks he would have great difficulty finding anybody to buy it.
DID YOU know that the CyBC’s radio broadcast in English and Turkish on 91.1 can now be heard ‘ilandwide’ (sic). At least this is what was claimed on CyBC TV news for foreigners. Does that include Kyrenia and the Karpas? Any Brits living in Greek properties in Kyrenia who cannot get a signal should write and complain to the corporation’s general manager Themis Themistocleous, because ‘ilandwide’ (sic) should mean the occupied areas as well.
As Themis says in his message to visitors of the CyBC website, “I assure you that every message, regarding our website or our other programmes and services, will be taken seriously into account.” His e-mail address, available ‘ilandwide’ (sic) is [email protected].
FOR ONCE there was a bit of excitement on the condemnation of the pseudo-state day, which was brought forward a day this year because the actual anniversary of the Denktator’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (a euphemism for Absolute Dependence on Turkey) fell on a Saturday.
There was no incentive for students to go demonstrating on a day when they did not have school so they held their protest on Friday, instead of yesterday. While most of the students condemned the anniversary in some indoor stadium listening to boring speeches and even more boring music, some one hundred kids decided to have some fun.
Brandishing Greek flags they ran into the buffer zone at the Ledra Palace and pretended to be heading for the Turkish checkpoint, but riot police suddenly appeared and after some scuffles forced them back. Why? This is a democratic country and it is the right of students to protest against the illegal occupation and attack the pseudo-cops.
The hundred brave students should have been allowed to breathe some life into an anniversary that has long lost its power to stir our patriotic feelings and our desire for the struggle.
