
End of Greek Aid Package as Country Faces Demographic Crisis - mpweiher
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/end-of-greek-aid-package-as-country-faces-demographic-crisis-a-1222554.html
======
antouank
> She wants to abolish Greek clientelism. Although every politician has
> promised this since taking office, none has succeeded. For centuries, the
> Greek administration was little more than an excuse for legal nepotism.
> Clientelism was the functional principle of society. Its roots reach into
> the Ottoman era, when clan leaders represented the Greeks to the Ottoman
> authorities, and they have continued to this day. Jobs in the administration
> served as a reward. Relationships were more important than skills for
> filling official positions.

That's Greece in a nutshell right there. Skills were never relevant, and still
aren't. It's all about who you know, and what political leverage you have. The
results are there for all to see. I left Greece 6 years ago, and unfortunately
whenever I visit, nothing seems to change.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Most of the world runs on patrongage, or 'clientism' as you call it.

Most large corporations are like that and so are Western governments.

'Getting in the door' at an entry-level job in government or even in business
... there are rules here, and tech tends to be more 'skills based' as are
startups. But after that you'd be surprised how many people have the jobs just
because they think they deserve them.

Clearly, an illiterate person is not going to be the Director of whatever, but
someone who is intelligent, a good communicator and politically suave can go
very far.

It's probably much worse in Greece, and every Greek person I know has left.

The EU may be about as good for Greece as the USA is to West Viginia - sure,
you may be protected and have a low-baseline standard of living, but you're
going to get kind of wiped out and never recover because nobody will stay, and
nobody will invest.

In these Federations, the winners are the established economic powers. Smaller
that are really, really responsible (i.e. Montana, Dakotas, or Sweden and
Switzerland in EU) and hold their own. Otherwise the power slips away.

Greece and Portugal are becoming retirement homes the size of nations.

~~~
arijo
Portugal's economy has been booming since 2015 - please resist the temptation
of bad-mouthing Portugal before you understand more about it's current
political, economical and social situation.

~~~
Gys
Watching it from the inside, i think its main source is tourism and foreigners
buying real estate. If the latter ends, i think the economy will fall back
again. Because nothing fundamental seems to be changing.

------
oblio
I'm slightly salty: Hey, at least Greece is relevant. That Golden Ancient Age
of Greece bought it relevance, support and sympathy for all eternity.

I'm from Romania, a poorer member of the EU that faces an even greater
demographic crisis. You don't hear a peep about us in the news, except for
recently, when the corrupt government started beating up protestors who were
asking for stronger anti-corruption measures.

Anyway, from a slightly less salty perspective: it's a real shame what
happened in Greece. I think Greece and Argentina may be the only developed
countries which lost the status. Hopefully Greece bounces back but I think
they'd need a big mentality change (their is awfully close to ours from what
I've seen).

~~~
barking
We don't hear much about Romania but we hear regularly in the news about
Romanians, usually in connection with atm machines and aspects of the night
time economy. :)

~~~
oblio
You're not helping with my saltiness :D

:(

Anyway, I'll cut it out, since this whole topic and thread aren't really HN
material.

------
ekianjo
> turned Greece into a different country.

They turned themselves into a different country by borrowing Euros at German
market interest rates while their previous interest rates for borrowing were
at 16% before they joined the Eurozone. They lived way above their means for
more than 10 years, what did they expect for a country that has virtually no
industry?

~~~
onli
That's neoliberal propaganda.

1\. Greece did not live above it means. It did not have more debts than other
countries in the EU zone, countries that did not crash 2\. Greece would have
been fine it it had not been forced to destroy its economy with an austerity
program

> _They lived way above their means_

You probably are german, because that is a BILD/CDU slogan. It's very hard to
qualify what that is supposed to mean. A country can not "live above their
means". It can have too much debts. That wasn't the case here.

~~~
ekianjo
I'm not German and I don't see why it would have anything to do with that.

"Living about their means" is what happens when their debt levels grow
exponentially:

[https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7KXHAuORi4w/TbS897oFTGI/AAAAAAAAA...](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7KXHAuORi4w/TbS897oFTGI/AAAAAAAAAlk/jzf-
BOZBbe0/s1600/GreeceDebtGDP.jpg)

in what world do you think this is sustainable? The US can get away with huge
amount of debts because they have the dollar, which the most trusted
international currency for virtually every commodity trade. Other countries
don't have that luxury.

~~~
jorvi
Not to mention they literally asked Goldman-Sachs to help cook the books so
they could qualify for joining the EU. I don't understand why people keep
perpetuating this 'poor Greece is so innocent' myth. There was rabid
government overspending, they literally defrauded the EU and they still got
saved!

~~~
deninho
EU was not defrauded, since they admitted they knew how the books where
altered.

On the other hand, do you know who didn't know nothing about it? Greek people,
particularly young people who are now in their 20s and 30s, and can't find a
job to live as proper human beings (>30% youth unemployment). Yet, you look
like you enjoy this. I, just, wish you will never face something like that in
your future.

~~~
ekianjo
> do you know who didn't know nothing about it?

They can blame their parents and grandparents who voted for stupid and corrupt
politicians. You don't need to look very far.

------
baud147258
>With the help of French officials, Gerovasili wants to lay a new foundation
for the Greek administration.

I'm laughing at the irony of asking French official for administrative
reforms. I mean each time in France the government tries an administrative
reform we're either getting strikes and protests devolving in the usual riots
or a reform that's either useless or make things worse. No reforms has
succeeded to bring any positive change here, so it's pretty stupid to ask the
French on how to reform, it's like asking a mole what colours look like.

~~~
onli
Plus, the french administration with its bureaucracy has to be the most
ineffective in Europe. France has so much bureaucracy, it makes Germany
(already overburdened with bureaucracy) look like an efficient market-oriented
country.

------
throwaway66666
Eh, I might be off topic, but to me Greece seems helpless and beyond saving.

Here is a personal anecdote. Before finishing university, I got a job offer by
a very prestigious international company. I accepted, and decided to register
myself as a freelancer so that I pay my respective taxes.

But... they would not let me do that. The person at the freelancer (TEVE)
office, explained to me, that since I did not finish my university I was not
allowed to perform that work, remotely, for a foreign company. Doing so, would
mean that I am stealing job opportunities from people like his son (yup), who
finished a similar school and now are unemployed.

I went again, and again, and I was shooed away with a similar excuses. Even
though according to government websites my case was legit, and there was a
special clause for people working for foreign companies. But apparently
something written online at a .gov website doesn't account to anything - the
people at the kiosks know better. Finally, months later, I decided to hire an
accountant.

It so just happened that they knew her personally. I got my license less than
a week later. After 4 months of stress, being told to my face I am breaking
the law and I am stealing their sons jobs, I finally had my own freelancer
company registered to my name. I joked that I should register as a heart
surgeon instead, it seemed that with knowing the right people it was
definitely possible.

....

When I was leaving the country to come to the states, I went to the same
office to de-register. Apparently the phone lines where down, but the person
there wrote down my name and swore they would de-register me. Three and a half
months later, and while I already had moved to the states, a letter that fined
me for not paying taxes and for not paying my company fees for the last 3
months, was delivered to my parents house. Apparently I was still registered
as a company owner. Oops. My dad for some reason paid that fine and didn't
tell me until months later, to not "stress me".

Fucking hell Greece. I could go on and on....

~~~
Nullabillity
Then again, that's the same reasoning the US uses to restrict H1-B and similar
visas...

------
barking
The article is mystifyingly optimistic about the prospects for the reform of
government. Only lawyers can resist reform better than government employees.
And then there's the digital revolution in government. If examples elsewhere
are a guide, there's huge potential there for a screw up as well. Although I
have heard that Estonia has managed it well. Maybe it should be them rather
than the French they should be getting advice from?

~~~
intended
Yup. I’m of the belief that there is something which can be counted as “too
much” change - change beyond the capacity of the system to absorb.

So when the gears go out of sync, the real world just finds ways to pretend to
match the requirements - keeping the change drivers happy- while going on with
life as close to normal as possible.

------
diminish
At the end what are structural changes which will grow the Greek economy? From
Bulgaria to Estonia, the east European economies are far more competitive and
innovative and could still suck the growth out of Greece in the small room
left around Germany's giant and productive manufacturing economy. Greece is
nowhere a rising technology star neither.

I guess Greece will find an equilibrium at a lower income per capita.

~~~
elorant
Long story short, facilitation of private sector. If I need one month of red
tape to open a new business and have to face a mountain of absurd taxes from
day one it's game over. Social security for example is obligatory and it's a
huge hurdle for young people who want to open a business and start making
money. It creates a lot of insecurity if you have no idea whether your
business will succeed to have to pay a monthly fee for social security which
if you don't they might confiscate your bank account.

------
dandare
> "In the past decades, the governments have so overwhelmingly failed that
> Greeks blame everything that goes wrong on the state,"

This hypocrisy makes me angry. Those governments were not forced on poor Greek
people by bad Jews or lizards from the space. Greek voters had a choice and
they repeatedly refused a wide range of responsible trustworthy politicians
that were telling the uncomfortable truth and repeatedly elected whoever would
promise them the biggest free lunch.

Of course, such hypocrisy is not limited to Greece, it is rather ubiquitous in
modern democracies.

~~~
barrow-rider
> Of course, such hypocrisy is not limited to Greece, it is rather ubiquitous
> in modern democracies.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and
deserve to get it good and hard. " \- HL Mencken.

Presumably Greece is in the getting "it good and hard" phase.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
>There is almost no work -- the main sources of income are beekeeping and a
bit of forestry. There's no tourism, even though, according to UNESCO, the air
here is cleaner than almost anywhere else in Europe.

One of the greatest things the tech industry could do to decrease the economic
inequality due to location would be to embrace remote work. Imagine what even
having 10 developers living in the village could do for its economy.

One area that this would for sure revitalize would be Middle America. There
are towns and counties that are in a deep economic recession, but have lots of
cheap land and housing. Meanwhile in Silicon Valley, developers making 6
figures worry about whether they can afford a shack. Remote work would be a
great boon for both workers and communities.

~~~
ravingraven
>Imagine what even having 10 developers living in the village could do for its
economy.

I guarantee that this village has no internet (other than 3/4G with a data
cap).

~~~
Flavius
I don't know where you live, but in certain locations in Europe (villages,
small cities) you can get decent internet. Unlimited 4G/5G is also gonna
happen in a few years.

~~~
ravingraven
I currently live in Germany, but I am Greek and have lived in Greece for most
of my life.

------
pjc50
This is a country-sized version of a problem that has been seen a lot before:
company towns where the company has left, or mono-industry towns where the
industry has gone overseas. The big American example is Detroit.

There don't seem to be any easy solutions. Taxing the "winners" of economic
growth to pay those who've lost out as a result sounds great but is impossible
when they're not even in the same country.

------
baxtr
I’ve stopped reading Spiegel.de. It has become too painful. The articles are
very shallow and the titles have become very click-baity

------
ravingraven
>It's surprising because economic liberalism doesn't have any deep roots in
Greece. There is no liberal party. The Greeks traditionally think in terms of
left and right.

A) There is a liberal party in Greece (just as much as there is a liberal
party in Germany or France), the people just don't vote for it.

B) Liberalism and "laissez-faire thinking" _are_ right wing, I can't see
another way of thinking about that.

I am a recent (after-crisis) Greek immigrant and the assumptions made by the
article are not true for me. It is not the wages (I am a professional in an
area where there are a lot of good paying jobs, even in Greece) or the bad
public sector (you learn to deal with that) that is keeping me away from
Greece. It is the beyond-imagination terrible working conditions. Why would I
leave my union-protected job in Germany to work twice as many hours (paid
overtime is not a thing in Greece) with 0 job stability?

~~~
shard972
Liberalism itself isn't right wing at all. Consider that in the USA at the
moment liberalism is most concentrated within the democratic party as most
neo-liberals have left the party post Trump.

Steve Schmidt and Joe Scarborough are two obvious examples of this shift.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
I think this would depend on what you consider liberalism. For instance, I
think two of the most important components of liberalism are the autonomy of
the individual and the consent of the governed.

If we wanted to create a truly liberal government we might have institutions
where you were given the option of paying an education tax. And if you paid
this tax, then you would be able to opt in to public education benefits which
would be equitably distributed and could approach "free" depending on how many
people paid in and the cost of the education institute any given student was
pursuing. However, if you chose to opt out of this tax, you would be obligated
to pay the costs and fees all on your own.

Instead proponents of "free" things tend to take the view that we should
forcefully demand one segment of society pay for this "free" thing for the
rest of society, and threaten them with violence or imprisonment if they
refuse. There might be completely reasonable justifications for this, but I
think it is a stretch to call this a liberal view once we consider what we
actually mean by "free".

~~~
pjc50
> opt in to public education benefits which would be equitably distributed and
> could approach "free" depending on how many people paid in and the cost of
> the education institute any given student was pursuing. However, if you
> chose to opt out of this tax, you would be obligated to pay the costs and
> fees all on your own

And if you opt out of the public education tax, every time you want to see a
doctor or cross a bridge or use a computer program, you have to pay a
contribution to the student loans of the people who wrote it?

(The history of public education in the west goes back to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system)
and wasn't originally "redistributive" in the modern sense at all, more the
tail end of feudalism)

~~~
TangoTrotFox
Can you state your implications more directly? I'm pretty sure I see what
you're suggesting, but I'd like to make sure I'm not straw manning you.

