Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

vanityfair.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 88 posts

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#2

Post by surlyadopter »

“The Greek people never learned to pay their taxes. And they never did because no one is punished. No one has ever been punished. It’s a cavalier offense—like a gentleman not opening a door for a lady.”

The article makes it clear that for Greece to improve this type of behavior must change. But is it even possible for Greece to do this in the span of say, less than one generation?

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#3

Post by narkee »

Well written, although it reads more like an opinion piece than an objective report.

If Greece were a business, it would become bankrupt and be dissolved. I guess that realistically can't happen for an entire country - but they really need a solid reboot.

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#5

Post by jsnell »

narkee wrote: post #3

Well written, although it reads more like an opinion piece than an objective report. If Greece were a business, it would become bankrupt and be dissolved. I guess that realistically can't happen for an entire country - but they really need a solid reboot.

It was written by Michael Lewis, so I suspect the primary goal was for it to be an entertaining story. Which it was, I hope he's working on a book on the subject.

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#6

Post by _delirium »

surlyadopter wrote: post #2

“The Greek people never learned to pay their taxes. And they never did because no one is punished. No one has ever been punished. It’s a cavalier offense—like a gentleman not opening a door for a lady.” The article makes it clear that for Greece to improve this type of behavior must change. But is it even possible for Greece to do this in the span of say, less than one generation?

I can't seem to find it, but I recall reading a piece at one point that suggested the general disregard for government rules in the eastern Mediterranean goes back centuries, to the rule of the Byzantines, Arabs, and Ottomans at various times. The rulers kept changing, and were generally bureaucratic, so people got used to doing whatever minimum was necessary to appease them, and generally ignore them whenever possible. Hence rampant avoidance of taxation, buildings often built in blatant violation of zoning or building codes, large informal economies, preference for dealing with officials you personally know / are related to, etc.

(IIRC, the author grouped Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt in that analysis.)

Re: Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

#7

Post by georgecmu »

“The second day on the job I had to call a meeting to look at the budget,” he says. “I gathered everyone from the general accounting office, and we started this, like, discovery process.” Each day they discovered some incredible omission.

Last week there was a post about a woman that was $185K in debt and didn't know it. There were a lot of comments asking how that could happen. Here's an example of a whole country that didn't know how much it owed.

Post reply on HN