Stratos, dreaming of drachmas SOME Greeks think Alexis Tsipras, their prime minister, went too far in confronting the EU. Stratos wishes he had gone further. At 26, he is a live wire. He studied economics at university but stopped three exams short of his degree to take an internship at a bank in Athens. A year ago he left his friends there, most of them struggling to earn, say, €650 ($710) a month in retail jobs, and he moved back to the island of Lesbos to help the family restaurant. Stratos voted “No” in the referendum two weeks ago, but grumbles that the vote was called at “the worst possible time”, snarling up the tourist season. Unlike Mr Tsipras, he thinks Greece should return to the drachma. “Now we can’t save enough to have a family. I don’t want my children to grow up like this,” he says. Most local business owners disagree; many in the older generation, and some of his family, favour the EU-minded New Democracy party. They dread the effect that leaving the euro might have on their pensions. Stratos sees things differently. “We have to start from zero and build up again. If we go on like this, we’ll always have...
 |
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.economist.com |