Weekend Economists Salute Ruin July 3-5, 2015

[Demeter]

14. How we survive a Greek tragedy

http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/581196/Greek-tragedy

When I was asked to write about Greek austerity and what my friends and I in Volos, a coastal city 200 miles north of Athens, have to go through to get by I thought the best comparison was life in 1970s Britain.

On a simple, domestic level when winter comes we can only afford to warm up one room. The rest of the house is freezing.

To stay afloat, I have children coming for English lessons a few times a week and, fortunately, the room is warm. But one mother asked if she could wait in the kitchen rather than come back to collect her child. I heated it up but I think I made a negative facial expression and she never asked again.

At the start of the economic crisis most people were terrified and quite a few of us built up stores of supplies and clothes. But this past month has seen me emptying our home of huge amounts of clothing and leaving it with a struggling local family. I don’t know if they know I gave the items but I see their children wearing them at my daughter’s school...