Marie-Antoinette: Let Them Eat Cake - Greece: Let Them Eat Expired Foods

Marie-Antoinette. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The phrase "Let them eat cake" is often attributed to Marie Antoinette, who was Dauphine of France from 1770 to 1774 and Queen of France and Navarre from 1774 to 1792. During her reign the supply of bread in France kept getting shorter, and the people became angrier. Eventually she was sentenced to death by guillotine. Her life simply shows us how great it is to be part of the upper crust, through no merit of your own, until the revolution marks you for death, through no fault of your own. 

Which brings us to today. In just a few years we’ve seen Greece go from being a popular tourist destination in one of the world’s largest economic regions, to being on the brink of complete and utter collapse. With untold billions in private and public sector debt, the situation in Greece (and other debt laden European countries like Spain and Italy) has devolved to such an extent that some EU member nations are mobilizing their military personnel in preparation for full spectrum meltdown across the entire region.

Jobs are so scarce that many have been forced into underground barter economies and family farming to make ends meet. From massive austerity spending cuts that have torn to shreds the government social safety net, to shortages in critical life saving medicines and the near breakdown of the nation’s power grid, Greece is experiencing all of the overt signs of a nation on its last leg.

Now, with food prices rising to unattainable levels for the majority of the Greek population, the government is taking the desperate step of allowing merchants to sell expired foods, presumably at cheaper prices, so that poverty-stricken Greeks have at least something to put on their tables, regardless of the health risks posed: (SHTFPlan)

From Voz Populi (Google Translated):
    Greece will allow the sale of expired food at a price lower than the original, in a move that the government has not been able to justify but consumer groups have interpreted as evidence of their inability to stop the escalating cost of commodities.
    The regulations exclude meat and dairy from the list of perishables that can be sold and sets a ceiling dates you can continue marketing. Thus, foods in which the expiration date is indicated by the day and the month, may continue on the shelf for another week. In the event that the “best before” only month and year point, the sale may be extended for one month, and in the event that the date indicated year alone, the sale date may be extended by one quarter.
    Though Moraitakis Efe declined to specify the reasons for this decision and merely noted that the legislation already existed, consumer groups and even government agencies have criticized the measure. “Virtually admit their inability to control prices,” Efe reported Tsiafutis Victor Consumers Association ‘Quality of Life’, one of the oldest in Greece.

    Food Inflation
    In the Greece of the crisis, the wage and pension cuts and rising unemployment, food prices and commodities has not stopped rising. Between August 2011 and August 2012, the price of sugar shot up 15%, the eggs, 6.8% for butter by 3.2% and that of coffee, 5.9%, according to data from the Statistics Authority.
    “It is an immoral act,” criticized Tsiafutis. “Instead of taking initiatives to control prices, allow the sale of food past the expiration date.”
    Moreover, from the National Food Agency gets even concerned that the measure serves to something. “It is doubtful that these foods are to be sold at low prices, because the price control mechanisms have failed,” said Yannis Mijas, president of this organization linked to the government. Indeed, the measure of how much states must be the initial price reduction, which is at the discretion of the merchant.
    To Mijas, selling expired food is also a moral dilemma, to divide consumers into two groups: those who can afford basic food and those who, because of poverty, “are forced to resort to dubious quality food.”

Editor's Note - Just the other day we here at HellasFrappe spoke with someone from Germany who told us that stores selling expired food are quite common in his country. This shocked us to be quite frank, because Germany is supposedly a thriving nation, unlike Greece and has competitive prices, so the argument that this can reduce prices is CRAP. That said, the citizens of Greece do not care what methods corporations use, or what trickery their CEO's adopt in order to sell their products to us, and we certainly do not give a damn about what sort of surveys they generate that aim to convince us that this is not as bad as it sounds, the fact that they now want to serve us expired food only spells out GREED to us. And we will definitely not support them in this ridiculous effort. All humans were created equal, and no one has the right to subject people who are less fortunate than others to serious health risks. Shame on all these policy-makers, and shame on the elite which continues to strip all of us of our dignity. If one just one person dies or gets seriously ill as a result of this brainstorm idea of yours... then be certain that the people will massively sue your butts to oblivion!