Stoil Topalov

This week was the first one since the beginning of the year, in which most of the world stock exchanges registered an increase. Dow Jones registered the biggest profit since the beginning of the year. The index opened on Monday with 6589 points and closed on Friday with 7203 points—in other words profit of 9.3%. The London FTSE 100 also increased with 7.2%, from 3498 points on Monday, to 3753 point Friday.

The Athens stock exchange also jumped up with nearly 5% this week and closed on Friday with 1557 points. However, the economic news for Greek consumers is not so good.

First, despite the financial crisis, the prices of most products remain high – they have not changed since 2007. This was proven by a report of the Consumers Union done on the quality of life in 5 supermarkets – AB Vasilopoulos, Atlantik, Veropoulos, Carfour, and Sklavenitis. The survey compared 15 products and discovered that the Atlantik and Veropoulos supermarkets have the biggest price increase since 2007. On the other hand, Carfour and AB Vasilopoulos have the smallest.

Second, instead of trying to make the financial crisis easier, the Greek government announced that it is planning new real estate and petrol taxes. One of the first increases is the inheritance tax, which is now 1% but will become 5%. One of New Democracy’s pre-election promises before it won the elections in 2004 was that there would be no inheritance taxes.
Another bad news – during January, the number of new debts in Greece has increased with only 0.23% - very far from the government’s goal of 10% during 2009.

All around the world, governments are not increasing taxes - they are trying to decrease them, in order to encourage consumerism. In Greece, we are witnessing the opposite phenomenon. This is why, most citizens do not believe that the economic policy of the government will take them out of the crisis with the smallest damages possible.