Hurray! Greek President's Salary To Be Slashed In Half

Karolos Papoulias, President of Greece (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Time to hold a fund raiser. The salary of the President of the Greek Republic, Karolos Papoulias, is going to be cut in half. Presently he is making EUR 23,122 a month, and it is expected to be cut in half to equal a measly EUR 11,561, following a decision by the finance ministry which came into effect as of September 1st 2012.

What will he do and how will he ever make ends meet again? The poor chap will have to cut down on lobster dinners at the Grande Bretagne Hotel and jazzy weekends at Mykonos or Lefkada. He won't be able to visit Tiffany's as often as he wished, and he will have to cut down on the number of Armani and Hugo Boss suits he owns.

Poor Karlos...

And following this wee bit of sarcasm we say IT's ABOUT TIME!!!

Break open the champagne folks the State finally slashed the salary of a man who is basically a living dust collector. At the same time the finance ministry suspended all his expense payments (because those we extra) and the same measure was applied to the President of Parliament, the Prime Minister, the Members of the Cabinet and even the leader of the main opposition party.

In a period when citizens are looking for food in rubbish bins it is more than appalling -and highly intimidating- to find out that the President of the Greek Republic receives more than EUR 322,000 (including bonuses, without expenses) annually for basically going around Greece -that is when he wasn't sleeping- and waving his hand to the few people that actually waive back.  How much do cutting ribbon ceremonies actually pay-out anyway?

The man was clearing almost half a million euros a year for doing nothing... nada... zero... tipota! Come on.. attending a parade, going to a gallery opening and/or supervising a swearing-in ceremony cannot be termed work... Heck he should have done it for free. And what's worse is that we also paid his expenses. And one has to wonder... what kind of expenses does the act of waiving one's hand have?

US President Barack Obama has an annual salary of US $450,000 (which is more or less 320,000), but excuse us... that is the United States, and not cash-strapped, little, tiny Greece.

A report on Proto Thema at the weekend said that reducing the President's salary will also affect the monthly compensations received by other former Presidents of the Republic as well. Does this mean that all other former presidents have also been receiving 23,122 euro plus expenses a month?

We will find out... Stay tuned.