17-6-2010 to 17-11-2011

It all started on June 17th, at the start of the summer of 2010. Was it a nice summer? I don't remember. We always seem to think our summers were worse than they actually were. Then it continued all through four seasons, up to the next summer. Now that one definitely was a bad summer. Which we spend in Greece. A country in trouble but not so much in trouble that our mixed Belgian-Greek friends living in a small, charming village called Lafkos, would be considering rushing back to Belgium 2 months later. It still continues till today, November 17th. 17th. 17. 17 months of unending political negotiations. Europe's on fire and we are now fighting over taxes on company cars and first class airline tickets. If these are the luxuries we fight over, we do not yet know the meaning of the word crisis. And those that fight taxes on company cars are the same people who claim that the unemployed are the Great Mass of Parasites and the only way to kick them back to work is by cutting their unemployment benefits in time. But don't we need jobs for the unemployed first, if we want to do that? And if we tell everyone we will have to work longer (which we should, provided we are able to physically) or that the existing pre-pension systems used to help companies restructure, will be dispensed with (because, yes, 54 is too young to retire), are we not pushing a lot of people out of unemployment and into social welfare and real poverty? And then I consider myself: imagine losing my more-than-averagely-paid job. Too old to find something else, no pre-pension arrangement possible and after 2 years a lose my maximum unemployment benefit which will be less than 30% of what I earned before. I will have worked all my life, with a great carreer, and I will end in poverty after selling my appartment and eating up any savings I will have left. Too bleak a picture? So let's not negotiate company car taxes. Let's try and focus on what's really important?