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Comment by jwr | Hacker News Reader

Reading all these heated discussions on HN, I find them to be extremely polarized ("good Germany/bad Germany") and missing the essential component: Greece is not a country that can sustainably live without working hard. Why do so few people mention that almost 75 percent of Greek pensioners retire before the age of 61?

While I do think debt relief is a necessary tool, I also believe that we should hear much more about what the country will do to improve productivity and work harder.

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> Why do so few people mention that almost 75 percent of Greek pensioners retire before the age of 61?

According to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement

    | Age             | 55-59 | 60-64 | 65-69 | 70+ |
    |-----------------+-------+-------+-------+-----|
    | Germans working |   61% |   23% |    3% |  0% |
    | Greeks working  |   65% |   18% |    4% |  0% |
    | USA working     |   66% |   43% |   20% |  5% |

65% of Greeks age 55-59 are working, while only 61% of Germans are. More Germans age 60-64 are working than Greeks, but slightly more Greeks age up to 69 are working.

> I also believe that we should hear much more about what the country will do to improve productivity and work harder.

Yes, when will the Germans learn to work as hard as citizens of the USA?

because this is a red herring, likely not true, and besides the point: the point is that the 5 years of austerity, privatizations, and privations have ruined the Greek economy, made it impossible to achieve the surplus goals mandated, and basically ensured that there will be no way to exit the debt. further application of the same medicine is stupid, unless you are TRYING to destroy and divide-up Greece, hence the metaphors discussed. A constructive economic policy needs to replace austerity as the Eurogroup medicine for economies like Greece, as we can see that it doesn't work. There is also the issue that you seem to be unaware of how the actual situation has progressed over the last decade, the last 3 Greek governments, the surpluses achieved in a short period of time during attempted reforms, the negative effects of privatization, capital flight, etc. There is also the issue of you thinking that German or other EU taxpayers are being asked to bail out Greece. The ECB run the Greek central banks. Those banks have gotten over 1/3 of all bailout assets for recapitalization goals. Interest earned on Greek money is being held by the ECB. The Greek people didn't need any of this to live. They grow more food than you do in Germany, and the entire economic game was set-up in Benelux, Germany, France, etc, anyway, and the Greek economy was never at their level in the first place, and so a common currency was filled with lots of German Submarine deals etc. Look at your auto industry. I live in Portugal. We don't make any cars here anymore, except so-called-German-ones (VW) or French ones. The profit chain always leads back up north. We are just the dummies making your olive oil. If the Eurogroup wishes to defend their senseless actions, they will of course suggest that you, the bloc taxpayers, are on the hook. If you are smart enough to see through their attempts to divide, you will see that the bloc IS paying for all of this clowning around, all of the time, and that the problem is related to the general European banking sector's relationship with international finance, the ECB & national-bank relations not being linked to any public policy we can meaningfully democratically participate in, wolf-like behavior of groups like the IMF, and I'm sorry to say the Eurogroup, and their economic interests etc...

Greece functioned OK before the euro. They devalued the drachma every now and then to keep themselves competitive. While never the model of operational efficiency, they chugged along before they were saddled with debt in the mid 2000s - debt spent mostly on buying military equipment and other unnecessary stuff FROM GERMANY and other EU countries with Greek decision-makers decisions being "incentivized" to do so. Ordinary people did not see much of this money. And the money spent on bailouts since 2010 was just bailing out private banks and saddling euro taxpayers with the bill.

By the way, Germany is not exactly a stranger to corruption (compared to other northern states in Europe):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Germany

Greece functioned "OK" if a low standard of living, rampant inflation and pervasive lack of access to credit for businesses or individuals is "OK".

Of course is better than blowing up a giant credit bubble and then popping it when it goes wrong, but it's not very nice.

> debt spent mostly on buying military equipment and other unnecessary stuff FROM GERMANY

I hope you realise how ludicrous this sounds. Granting them victim status because they just couldn't resist those submarines and tanks despite not being able to pay... If you are looking for large unnecessary contributors for Greek debt, why don't you start at the $15bn Olympic Games (no doubt they were forced on Greeks by the German manufacturing firms, too).

> Germany is not exactly a stranger to corruption

Sometimes orders of magnitude matters. It does matter whether the rate of tax payment non-compliance is 5% or 50%, even if it does not fit the narrative of moral equivalence.

>Greece functioned "OK" if a low standard of living, rampant inflation and pervasive lack of access to credit for businesses or individuals is "OK".

They still have all of these things. Plus 25% unemployment (50% for young people), and debt equal to 180% GDP (soon to be 200%).

It takes two to tango. I was not trying to grant them victim status, I was just pointing out that German (and other EU businesses/banks) are not exactly blameless (ever heard of predatory lending?)

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