Tough Christmas for Athens Shopkeepers

Inquiring minds are looking toward southern Europe…Greece specifically where Athens shopkeepers are experiencing a woeful Christmas season:

ATHENS, DECEMBER 14 – The worst Christmas period of the last decade is what is being forecast for Athens shopkeepers, in particular for those whose shops are in the centre of the capital. So said Antonis Makris of Greece’s Association of the retail sales businesses to the online newspaper real.gr. Since the beginning of the year, retail sales have presented a reduction of 15-17%. This is a percentage that, according to Makris, will be significantly increased if the centre of the capital is not freed from the continual protest demonstrations. In addition, according to the National Trade Confederation, during the Christmas holidays this year, sales will record a contraction of 3 billion euros, caused by the reduction in consumers’ incomes, the increase in the number of unemployed people and direct taxes during the last quarter of 2010.

This is what happens when government spends, and spends, and spends, and spends, and…