WHAT A triumphant week for the island’s, small neo-liberal camp which won its first major battle in the class war declared by the reactionary communist forces running the country. This was a morale-boosting victory for which we are indebted to General Averof and Generalissimo Junior who obliterated the government’s weak defences both inside and outside the legislature.
It was high time the arrogant dictatorship of the privileged proletariat, imposed by comrade president Tof, was given a lesson in neo-liberal economics, because whenever he and his sidekicks sit the economy exam they get zero. Nobody would care under normal circumstances, but the comrade and the clueless, self-interested union bosses who tell him what to do are pushing the economy deeper into recession.
Our future and livelihoods are in the hands of people who believe the Soviet economic model was the highest achievement of mankind and would be out on the streets singing L’Internationale and waving red flags if their mismanagement eventually caused the collapse of our market economy. If these guys are not stopped, in a year or two we will be shopping with ration books and using public transport to go to work.
Thursday’s life-affirming defeat of the regressive forces of communism and defenders of privilege has given us hope once again – hope of a better future with a better standard of living, better holidays, better souvla and better sex (we should not forget that AKEL also wants to make paid sex a criminal offence).
THE CLASS war rhetoric was turned up to deafening levels by the commies, whose mouthpiece Haravghi said on its front page, after Thursday’s humiliation, the opponents of the tax increases “Took a stand in favour of wealth”. Comrade leader Andros said it was “apparent who represents the interests of big capital”.
This is just a small token of the red propaganda we were subjected to by the pseudo-defenders of the workers. Because let’s face it the government’s tax increases would not help shop assistants on €800 a month or fast food restaurant workers who get even less than that. I won’t mention foreign maids or Arab farm workers in case people think I am some sort of socialist.
The tax increases were not aimed at helping lowly-paid workers as the AKEL propaganda machinery claimed. They would have gone towards covering part of the gaping budget deficit, caused by the public sector pay-roll, which stands at €2.2 billion a year, because the boss of the public parasites’ union PASYDY did not want any of his members’ parasitic interests touched.
So businesses would have to pay higher taxes so that privileged parasites of the public sector would not feel any of the effects of the recession, in contrast to the rest of the population.
The private sector would pay to cover the deficit caused by the all-devouring greed of the public parasites who were not prepared to have their privileges reduced. It is these greedy, selfish, underworked, grossly overpaid parasites, who, for decades, have lived off the toil of poor private sector workers, like 17th century aristocrats, that the communists were protecting with their tax proposals.
It is apparent, as Comrade Andros would say, “who represents the interests and protects the privileges of the labour aristocracy.”
WE WROTE last week about the ‘big sacrifice’ that the parasites made to share in the burden of reducing the public deficit. Zero pay rises we were told, which meant they would only receive wage scale increases and CoLA which would represent an annual pay rise of a paltry five per cent. The audacity of the blood-sucking parasites is boundless.
This was the concession made to the government by the constantly miserable-looking boss of PASYDY Glafkos Hadjipetrou on condition that the comrade president adopted his ‘tax businesses’ proposals for reducing the deficit. This happened at a meeting at which the wily Tof was to have persuaded the professional moaners of PASYDY to suck less of our blood. In the end they persuaded the weak comrade to suck the blood of the private sector, because this would be the socialist thing to do.
The sensible, cost-cutting measures prepared by finance ministry technocrats had been publicly disowned by the comrade anyway so he adopted the proposals of the hideous Hadjipetrou who knows as much about economics as the comrade.
Marxist theory had been rewritten at this historic meeting – the dictatorship of the proletariat gave way to the dictatorship of the public parasites.
ON FRIDAY night, the CyBC was put at the service of the government’s propaganda machinery. In its report on the main evening news about the bickering over the rejection of the tax increases, featuring comments by the comrade and deputies, it kept showing footage of bank machines counting big wads of €50 notes.
The same footage was repeated at least five times, before we saw a hand (probably a bank cashier’s) counting more €50 notes. What was the point? Watching a machine counting euro notes is not exactly great television. Then I realised that this was a subliminal message to make people angry that the government’s opponents had helped the wealthy who needed a machine to count their huge wads of cash.
If the row about the taxes continues, the CyBC report could be accompanied by footage of an expensively dressed, gold Rolex-wearing Cypriot lighting his Cohibas with a €500 note while pouring Dom Perignon champagne over a scantily-clad Moldovan babe stretched on the hood of his shiny Bentley. Everyone would get the message and it would be more entertaining.
THE IMF was in the People’s Republic for two weeks studying our union-run economy and on Monday the mission leader gave a news conference at which he spoke about the economic measures that needed to be taken. He said nothing that people with half a brain (this excludes members of the government, AKEL and union bosses) did not already know.
The public sector pay-roll needed to be reduced, he said, stressing that all three components of a wage – basic, incremental scales and CoLA – had to be cut. The pay-roll was the cause of the deficit, he said and unless it was cut the government would not meet its 3 per cent deficit target. He dismissed the tax increase idea as unfair.
But what does an IMF economist, whose job it is to study different countries’ economic performance, know about how an economy works? Hadjipetrou, who knows nothing about how an economy works is much better-qualified to advise the government on how to reduce the deficit.
AND SO is PEO union boss and deputy Bambis Kyritsis, another great economics mind, who issued a written statement blasting the ‘neo-liberal recipes of the IMF’ which ‘only incriminated wages (sic) for all problems’ and ‘raised the issue of CoLA’. CoLA does not exist in any sane country in the world because it pushes up prices, but for the People’s Republic, according to Kyritsis, it is a good thing. When he proves this with economic arguments he will win the Nobel prize for economics.
This arrogant attitude of ignoring the advice of highly qualified economists of the IMF and the European Commission not to mention our own Central Bank Governor, who worked for the Federal Reserve, is an indication of total lunacy.
It is the similar to a smoker suffering a heart condition and going to three, well-respected cardiologists for treatment. All three prescribe the same drugs, tell him to stop smoking and recommend the same diet for him to get better. But when he goes for a haircut a few days later, his barber tells him that the cardiologists always incriminated smoking and excessive consumption of halloumi. ‘Carry on smoking, eat as much halloumi as you like don’t take the medicine,’ the barber advises. If the smoker has an IQ above 10 he would ignore his barber in order to survive.
Can the Kyproulla economy survive with government led by someone who heeds the advice of the union barbers instead of the experts?
THE HALOED leaders of the neo-liberal cause, Averof and Junior, welcomed House president and DIKO boss Marios Garoyian to the camp on Thursday. The 2009 personality of the year took the stand at Thursday’s debate, saying that DIKO did not exist to applaud the government and censured its anachronistic rhetoric about class struggle.
DIKO did not demonise profit and was not dogmatically against IMF proposals, he asserted. Once a principled opportunist like Marios, who takes stands only on the Cyprob and Big Al (safe issues) joined the neo-liberal camp you know victory is assured. He probably asked Paul the octopus who would win the showdown before turning his back on his commie comrades.
‘WHY Cyprus is more Islam-friendly than Turkey?’ was the headline of a column by Mustafa Akyol in the English-language Turkish paper Hurriyet Daily News. Akyol praised our education minister Andreas Demetriou for intervening in a dispute over the wearing of a head-scarf to a Cyprus state school.
He told a primary school to allow the Turkish girl to wear a head-scarf to class, because “religious freedom is non-negotiable”. Akyol said “well done Mr Demetriou”, before railing against the head-scarf ban at Turkey’s schools and concluding that Turkey’s ultra-secularists would eventually soften. “And until then, thank God, we have at least free countries like the Greek-ruled Cyprus Republic, where veiled Turks can find respect,” he wrote.
THE ISLAM-friendly English School Parents Association also won a small victory on Thursday. It ensured the House Finance Committee did not release the €341,000 subsidy for The English School before the legislature’s summer recess. DISY’s decision to oppose the release of the funds tipped the balance in favour of the Islam-friendly parents.
The blocked money, according to committee chairman Junior, withheld because it was not put to proper use, could be released when the House reconvenes. This is assuming the School board abandons its plan to observe the Bayram holiday, which would be an appalling waste of the taxpayer’s money.
APART from a magnificently sexy bum, J-Lo also has political sensitivities. On Friday she took a principled stand on the Cyprob, announcing that she would not be appearing at the inauguration gala of the Cratos Premium Hotel and Casino in the occupied north, which cost its Turkish owners €174 million.
J-Lo’s publicist said that she “would never knowingly support any state, country, institution or regime that was associated with any form of human rights abuse.”
The internet protests by Greek Cypriot groups obviously worked, even though they deprived our side of an even bigger triumph. If she attended the inauguration and stayed at the flash complex, one of our warrior lawyers could have sued her for illegally staying at a hotel built on Greek Cypriot land.
Imagine how much world publicity such a high-profile case would have brought to the Cyprob. What a missed opportunity.
ARCHBISHOP Chrys’ plan to build a massive cathedral in the old town was given the go-ahead by the majority of the Nicosia Municipal Council on Tuesday. Seeing all those badly-dressed, sandal-wearing, earnest and hairy do-gooders lobbying the councillors to reject the plan, you instinctively sided with Chrys.
Perdikis was one of the heckling activists (the only one without a beard), which was bound to boost support for the Chrys’ vanity project. Mayor Eleni Mavrou, who is opposed to the cathedral, did not give up hope. If archaeological remains were found, when digging started on the project, then the planned underground car park could not go ahead and the project might have to be abandoned.
Dream on Ms Mayor. Chrys does not seem like a man who will allow archaeological remains to stop him from doing what he wants to do.
PAUL the Octopus, which correctly predicted the result of all Germany’s matches in the World Cup has tipped Spain to win tonight’s World Cup Final. Our establishment, a supporter of the beautiful game, hopes he is right because this Dutch side has betrayed its tradition for playing pretty football and embraced the Mourinho art of winning ugly. We hope the pretty and sexy football of Spain triumphs tonight.
And now that the Germans have no use for Paul they could send him to Kyproulla so we can ask him who will win the Cyprob talks.
