A view from afar.

 By Donna Cole

 Usually on the weekends, I look through foreign, mainly European newspapers to see the world from their perspective. With all the problems in Greece, those papers have become very interesting. In the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, I found this fantastic letter to the editor. It is concerning an article about extending retail shop hours in Athens.


Now, the shop's are hours are regulated by the government to make the unions happy. It's a killer for economic growth. I get the impression this letter is from a man of Greek heritage, who is or has lived in Australia. The things he is writing about are almost too crazy to believe for an American. It should tell you why Greece is bankrupt and European style Socialism has failed.

 Shopping hours

            I look at the extended shopping hours in Athens and I laughed.

We had the same left-wing unions restrict opening hours in shops for 100 years in Melbourne.

I can remember spending all night at illegal Greek night clubs in Melbourne that would not shut at the lawful time of 11 p.m., arriving home with my girlfriend at 4 or 5 a.m. and after a lot of laughter, drinking and dancing, hitting the bed like a rock. Often waking up on Saturday at 11 a.m. or even later to rush to the fruit market and supermarket for food, otherwise we would be without food for a week. Many a time being in a supermarket past 12 noon on a Saturday, with the staff shouting at us to leave, as we rushed to grab anything edible off the shelves.

All this changed thanks to the Vietnamese refugees who settled in Melbourne by the tens of thousands. I still want to kiss a Vietnamese shopkeeper when I see one. The Vietnamese refused to close their shops as long as there was a customer around. The logic was that they paid rent 24/7.

The Vietnamese were young, like all migrants, and often worked late, and if the shops were closed they could not eat. As they extended their businesses whole shopping strips stayed open seven days a week, and at times it seemed they never closed. Prosecutions took place, they paid the fines and kept opening seven days a week. Dead areas of Melbourne that did not see life for one hundred years came to life. We all saw that no harm was done to anyone, and they stopped prosecuting.

We now have supermarkets open 24 hours a day. At Christmas many regional indoor shopping centers often have 24-hour trading, and extended hours at other times. In all of Melbourne after 10 p.m. there used to be only one cafe that stayed open 24 hours, and that was run by a Greek family, where people who worked after noon or night shifts could get something to eat. This has changed and there is still room for improvement. We need to have 24/7 trading and public transport.

Greece needs to deregulate all retail trading. People should not have to walk around begging for someone to take their money. It’s another thing holding Greece back. All those shops that are only used for eight hours a day, and stay empty for 16 hours is pure silliness. Anyone who feels like working and paying taxes should be free to do so. Despite what the left-wingers think, we do live in a democracy.

The Greek economy needs the productivity.

Charilaos Lithoxopoulos

And liberals think America should be more like Europe.