This is a scheme of social legitimation of corruption through its apparent democratization. It starts from not issuing receipts and having two prices for services (i.e. plumbers: 100 Euro with a receit, 70 without), to doctors demanding extra money for surgery in public hospitals, to bribing public hospital boards to not operate or not buy expensive diagnostic machines so as to increase demand for access to private diagnostic centers, to public employees receiving a percentage of the supply costs in order to select the "right" supplier, to paying prefecture employees to turn a blind eye to, often vast, construction or planning illegalities (such as building villas in burnt forest areas) or simply to hurry-up procedures that are intentionally delayed so that one is forced to bribe the official to finish up various procedures (i.e. permits for connecting new buildings to the power grid) in a reasonable time frame. The list goes on ad infinitum. The many faces of Greek corruption would require terrabytes of just to list and years to document...

Ah, how familiar, unfortunately. Just recently:

• An acquaintance of mine tried to get a drivers license for half a year. Right before the first exam, the instructor told him plainly that he should forget about passing without giving the instructor (him) his due. My acquaintance flat-out refused, and when he passed the theory exam without problems, it seemed the instructor was bluffing. However, then came the practice test. He failed three times. Even when there was another instructor in the car and no problems were noted during the test, the test result document noted failure. Finally my acquaintance asked the first instructor how much it would cost him, to which he replied, "you should have asked that the first time", then named the sum. (Which my acquaintance final paid, to my anger.)

• For craftsmen in my town, the two prices for services mentioned by talos are a norm. In the past month a plumber was giving me bad looks for asking for a bill. And this month a carpenter wasn't troubled by me witnessing as he gave a neighbour a bill for a third or fourth of his services only.

In Spain, nobody blames Franco for this. Or anyone for that matter. It's just a part of life.

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan