After reading a recent article bemoaning the "Byzantine process" for investors to build golf courses in Greece see here , I just couldn't let it pass without comment.
While these (not so) benevolent investors bitch and moan about essentially their frustration in not being able to make more money, have we taken a moment to think about how inappropriate and out of place golf course resorts are to the Greek environment, and indeed our way of life?
It's stated as a criticism that there's only 6 major golf courses in Greece, yet I consider that a POSITIVE. I can think of nothing worse than to rape the fertile Mediterranean Greek soil with a bulldozer, and to then drop in a sand bunker, there's just something about the game of golf that is anathema to Greece. What business does this quaint Scottish game of the lowlands have doing in Greece? It may be just fine in the lush green fields of Scotland, but we're not exactly drowning in fresh water in Greece. And how much real estate are we taking up to build these monstrosities? In a land of not exactly set in stone land ownership titles, you can't help but wonder how many people will be potentially swindled out of their "implied" land by cashed up legally savvy developers?
But these resorts apparently have "economic benefits" for the country? But for whom exactly? It's all in the detail of the tax arrangements that politicians sign the developers up to, and how much of this "revenue" trickles down to the wider community is very debatable.
Sorry, but I'm just very suspicious of these "exclusive" resorts in their gated little communities in a place like Greece, remember golf was a game that you couldn't even play at the better clubs if you were black not that many years ago.
If you want to see golf in the Mediterranean, go to Spain me thinks, they sold out years ago. Keep these awful resorts out of my beautiful Messinia!
I was really curious about the statement "There are only 6 Golf Courses" and how easy it was to portray that as a negative.
ReplyDeleteSimply because it is a relatively small number compared to the West (especially the Anglo West), it is deemed a negative. But is it to do with the shocking consumerist culture we currently have where MORE is BETTER?
Then again, I would not expect any better from the Wall Street journal. Another disgraceful newspaper.
Savvas Tzionis
Toooo late to keep them out of beautiful Greece . As Hamlet said "somthings rotten in the state of Denmark " also pertains to this situation .. The Greeks are starving and they are trying to tell me it's good for Greece or just for those investors who gain tax perks . Please ! This is another remnant from ND party !
ReplyDeleteCould it be that the disastrous situation that Greece finds itself in was started by Nea Dimokratia in their 1990-1993 term of office?
ReplyDeleteLike in many countries at the time (ESPECIALLY the ex Soviet Union), opening markets and economies was all the rage.
All it did was encourage Greeks to believe they could have anything at no cost!
Savvas Tzionis