Receipt, Please!

One of the new measures introduced by the Greek government to diminish the public debts is to encourage the Greek taxpayers to bring receipts to the tax office when they declare the annual income to get tax reduction or tax return. Otherwise they cannot obtain the reduction that they used to get under the old system.



The legislation is almost retroactive, because the income we are going to declare in May refer to the income of last year, meaning that many receipts are from last year. As very few people are fully prepared to this change (most of us knew it, but the government widened at the last moment the range of receipts the tax-payers can bring in, most of the would-be useful receipts - receipts from supermarket, for example - had already gone to the bin.

Anyway, for this reason, the conscious taxpayers are now collecting receipts for almost anything other than rent or big purchases like house or car. BUT, the likewise conscious family-own shops/restaurants now try not to write receipt more than ever! The big shops or chain restaurants/cafeterias gave/give us always receipts as, in case of big enterprises, the persons who give us receipts do not have direct contact with the executives who are worrying about tax. Problem is more with small enterprises like family own restaurants, bakeries, butchers, fishmongers etc, because they are directly run by those people who declare the profit to the tax office. Obviously they have always declared less than what they actually earned and now they are worrying if they cannot do it anymore, when the customers bring their receipts to the tax office.

Consequently a bakery near our flat, that used to give us always receipts, did not, when I went there a few days ago. I told this story to some friends and found out that they are all experiencing the same phenomenon.

It is annoying if I have to ask for receipt every time I shop and eat, but, alas, I have to do it to save my and the state's economy.

Grande Bretagne Under Siege

Today there was a strike of public employees, air traffic controllers, teachers etc. Most of the Athenian public transportation was working fine, but the buses and metros were visibly less busy today. I wondered if it was partly because that there are so many public employees in Greece.

By the way, passing Syntagma Square this morning (it should be around 8:15), I saw a bunch of young people occupying the Hotel Grande Bretagne.

Rather curiously, the King George Hotel next door was closed but not occupied, while Athens Plaza next next door was open as usual. Was it because the Grande Bretagne is such an iconic building and is situated closer to the Parliament, or was it because it was seen some how as a symbol of establishment and exploiting capitalists?


While the Greek state is flattering from the world economic crisis, the Greek people keep on putting forward their rights and demands, doing strike, closing roads (farmers) and stopping all the flights within/to/from Greece. When the Asian currency crisis happened, I remember that many Koreans bring their own gold to the government to donate, hoping to contribute to the stability and strength of their currency. I understand this sort of thing will never happen in Greece, but cannot the Greeks be a bit more constructive in dressing their own economic problems?

Thinking About "Unfriend"

About a week ago, I learnt that New American Oxford Dictionary selected "unfriend" as the new word of the year. Probably people in America and UK heard about it before me, but, you know, it takes time for news to arrive in Greece! (I am just joking).

http://blog.oup.com/2009/11/unfriend/

It is a verb meaning "removing someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook". It is in a sense an antonym of "befriend", but in a limited context, i.e. happens only in the world of Internet.

This word provoked me some thoughts. In person, we make friends, but we usually do not have to "unfriend". We just gradually lose contact. Of course, we do have fight and slit up with friends, but this happens only rarely to normal people, I think. Act of "unfriending" is something more casual.

What I am thinking are these "friends" or rather acquaintances that we don't have much contact/relationship anyway. In social networking sites (SNS), there is no such thing as "acquaintance": people are all either friends or non-existent (or friends of friends). On SNS you can make 'friends' without even exchanged any word. This happened to me recently and caused some stir in my mind, as until now, my 'friends' were either real-life friends or family members/relatives. In real world, you won't label as 'friends' those who you have never spoken with. (those who you exchange(d) views and thoughts with some frequence on Internet without actually meeting them is in a different category; they are like "pen pals" in snail mail age, they are "www pals").

With the coming of Facebook and the like, "making friends" has become ever easier (not slightly because it changed the definition of "friend"), but naturally we humans cannot keep friendship with all these casual "friends". Consequently there is sometimes a need to "unfriend", if you don't want to list as 'friends' those who you have never spoken with or even you don't remember at all (there are people who list more than 1000 people as 'friends' and I am sure that they - if they are not gifted with an exceptional memory - won't be able to identify all of them in 10, or even 3 years later).

I have Facebook only for 2 years. I cannot help but thinking what shall I do with these 'friends' I don't remember who they are in 5 years. Unfriend them? Probably.