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Protesters wave black flags in front of the Greek parliament on Friday, Oct. 21, 2011. About 500 civil servants protested against new austerity measures. Greek unions on Friday threatened new anti-austerity strikes next week, after parliament approved deeply-resented new cutbacks. AP Photo/Petros GiannakourisPetros Giannakouris/The Associated Press

Maria's secret could get her fired. The manager of an Alpha Bank branch in Athens has been yanking money from her account even as she puts on a good face to customers, assuring them that the bank is safe.

"I took out 50 per cent a week ago and put it in a safe deposit box in the bank," she said earlier this week, a day before massive protests engulfed the city, emphasizing that her bosses were unaware of her non-confidence manoeuvre. "I am worried that all of the banking system will collapse."

She, like millions of Greeks, is taking desperate measures to cope with desperate times as the country's economy implodes amid waves of government cutbacks and soaring unemployment.

Athenians say they're paralyzed by "fear of the unknown." No country in the 17-nation euro zone had required a bailout before Greece. No country had seen its recession deepen as quickly as Greece's and none had been forced to make such aggressive spending cuts to meet the demands of international creditors.

While some Greeks believe their country requires, and even deserves, the shock treatment delivered by the seemingly endless austerity programs, many others think the cutbacks are counterproductive, or almost sadistic, because they are inflicting more wounds on an economy that's already bleeding.

"The severity of the measures is much bigger than anything that has happened to any other country," said Aris Laskaratos, 51, the owner of Aiora (Greek for "Hammock"), a small Athenian publishing house. "This is an experiment. But if you go only for cuts, cuts, cuts instead of structural changes, you kill the patient."

Greek citizens have no idea what's next. The country could be veering toward a brutal, Argentine-style default that could shred their economy. It's unclear if the banking sector will remain standing and pension plans will continue to be paid. No one knows how long bailout loans, courtesy of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, will keep coming, as popular resistance to the rapidly escalating cost of rescue packages builds in Germany and other relatively wealthy northern countries. For Greece, the ultimate risk is eventually getting kicked out of the euro zone.

What Greeks do know is that the recession is bound to get worse before it gets better. Greece's official unemployment rate has soared to 16.5 per cent from 7.7 per cent in 2008 and is climbing. The latest austerity program will reduce civil servants' wages by an average of 14 per cent, eliminate 30,000 civil service jobs by year-end and crunch pension benefits. Taxes on fuel, real estate, incomes and sales are going up.

Shops are closing everywhere. A year ago, perhaps one in 10 shops in central Athens was boarded up. A tour of any street today reveals that the number probably has doubled.

Anxiety is the dominant emotion, as Maria (not her real name), the Alpha Bank manager, knows well.

Sipping a mint tea at an outdoor cafe on a sunny afternoon, she says her customers started to worry about the security of their bank in mid-2009, about a year after the Lehman Brothers collapse triggered the global financial crisis. A few months later the new government of Prime Minister George Papandreou revealed that the previous crew had fudged the debt figures for years.

The wealthy clients, she said, were the first to take the money and run. They shifted their savings to other countries – Canada, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Cyprus. Why Canada? "Because it's seen has having a stable economy and stable banks, with no financial turbulence," she said.

The rush for the exits, she said, was not just motivated by worries of a Greek banking collapse and higher taxation rates, but fear that Greece would go back to the drachma, an inglorious currency that would no doubt lose half its value against the euro within minutes of its return. Then the smaller depositors began to take their money out. "They are finding safe places in their home or renting safety deposit boxes," she said. She notices that withdrawals rise when the media brims with dire economic news. "That's when we have huge queues at the bank," she said.

Costas Garyfallou, the owner of Brigante, a coffee and ice cream shop just off Syntagma Square in the heart of Athens, said he has drained his bank accounts. "Yes, all of it; it's at home next to my shotgun," he said as protesters spilled into his shop on Thursday, just before another round of rioting broke out. "I don't trust the government [deposit]guarantees. They can't guarantee anything."

The Bank of Greece said deposits by households and businesses in Greek banks peaked at €238-billion ($333-billion) in 2009. By June of this year, the figure was €188-billion, and is probably less now.

While Greeks are rushing to protect their liquid assets from potential bank failures and economic meltdown, business owners are struggling to cope with plunges in sales and consumer confidence. Some are using a mix of innovation and cost-cutting to try to stay afloat while they pray to gods on Mount Olympus to deliver economic miracles.

Others won't make it. Konstantinos Katsigiannis, an Athens lawyer and president of the Hellenic-Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said he expects a massive run of failures, especially among small businesses. "Psychologically, Greeks feel that they're on the edge of an abyss," he said on Wednesday, the first day of the 48-hour anti-austerity strike that paralyzed Athens. "The state of mind is depression … Lots of businesses are going down."

In his view Greece is worse off than Argentina, the former economic basket case often compared to Greece. Argentina defaulted in 2001 and scrapped its currency link with the U.S. dollar, allowing it to devalue. Greece has no currency to devalue, he notes. And its economy is inextricably tied to the euro zone's economy, which is slowing. One of its biggest trading partners, Italy, is expected to slump back into recession next year. "So what we have to do is go through a very hard internal devaluation," he said.

In the wealthy north Athens suburb of Maroussi, comfortably beyond the broken streets of riot-torn central Athens, Dimitris Fotopoulos, a Greek-Canadian restaurant owner who was born in London, Ont., knows all about internal devaluation. He opened Aneton in 2005. Business boomed. Customers were attracted to his Greek cuisine with a modern twist. Even Mr. Papandreou came on occasion.

Then business fell off a cliff. By Easter of this year, sales were down 70 per cent even though he knew most of his clients could still afford to eat out. "Psychology plays such a big role," Mr. Fotopoulos said. "They want to save more."

Out went the frills. The restaurant eliminated all imported items, such as Italian wines, oils and truffles. The wine list went from 70 labels to six. The size of the portions went up. When other restaurants raised prices to try to make up for lost sales, Aneton dropped prices by 40 per cent. On a normally slow Tuesday night, the restaurant was largely full and Mr. Fotopoulos thinks the place will survive. "We've gone back to basics and we're promoting great value," he said.

Small businesses elsewhere are trying to muddle through in the hopes a rebound will come soon. Mary Koutras, 53, the owner of a women's accessories shop in the heart of Athens' main shopping street, said her "customers are still coming, but they are buying cheaper products."

This doesn't bother her much. What does, however, is the government's practice of piling taxes on taxes as one austerity measure lands atop another. "If I don't pay, they will close my shop down," she said.

She doesn't think continued membership in the euro zone is worth the price. "We should run away from the euro zone," she said. "Germany is taking over. They deal from a position of strength and they can impose their own policies."

Not far away, Eyi Gyftou, 36, the owner of jewellery design shop Catherine Bijoux, where sales have dropped 50 per cent since 2006, has a similar view of Germany and its insistence on deep-cut austerity measures. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, she said "should protect Greece and she didn't. We're all in the same family."

Mr. Garyfallou, the owner of the Brigante coffee and ice cream shop, isn't blaming Germany for the slowdown. He blames lack of Greek discipline, greed and the monstrously bloated and inefficient Greek civil service. His business is suffering and he is cutting costs. Forty per cent of the shops near his have closed, he said.

"I think Greece is going into a depression."

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