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Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

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Re: Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

#41

Post by kubb »

onraglanroad wrote: post #32
samiv wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I'm not an economist but my social democratic common sense would tell me to look at the bottom 10% income bracket and see how they're doing. Incidentally these people are the best economic citizens because if you give them money they'll spend every cent of it because they need to buy food and energy, use health care and pay rent. In other words if a rich person gets a million they (if they're sane) spend a fract…

The capitalist response to that would be that the investment in companies is better because it makes everyone richer in the long term by increasing overall wealth. I'm not sure I buy it but it's an effect to consider.

That does sometimes happen - investment does cause development. The mistake is to assume that's always what happens, and that everybody can benefit from the development.

Re: Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

#42

Post by radu_floricica »

abirch wrote: post #8
samiv wrote: post #4

There's no paradox here. Distribution of wealth matters. Rich got richer and everyone else didn't. Simple as that.

As Ray Dalio has mentioned, you should measure results on how it impacts the bottom 51% of the people (the majority) it's a lot more illustrative than looking at the average.

Considering how skewed tax participation is, this would be a very one sided view. Just tax the top 49% more, no matter what's their current level of taxation, and redistribute to the lower 51%. It'll always make this criteria look like a success.

Problem is, this creates systemic effects. If you look longer term, a society that does this will end up a lot poorer than one that doesn't. Even for the bottom 51% you were optimizing. Because there are two variables to control: the redistribution, and the actual productivity. If you just focus on splitting wealth, you stop growing wealth.

Growing wealth on the other hand will make everybody richer, including the botton 51%. Simply participating in a richer economy has advantages. Plus the smaller redistribution percentage will actually end up bigger in absolute terms.

Re: Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

#43

Post by dwroberts »

password54321 wrote: post #20
erdeibit wrote: post #5

Capitalism optimization: make the rich richer making the poor poorer

You live in the most privileged period in human history. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/poverty-explorer?tab=li...

You’re posting this like it’s a counterpoint, but it further highlights how disgusting the situation is. We have people becoming trillionaires while 10% of the world’s population is considered to be in extreme poverty. It’s ‘less bad’ than in the past but it’s still absolutely horrifying.

Re: Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

#44

Post by wqaatwt »

ajmurmann wrote: post #30
samiv wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I'm not an economist but my social democratic common sense would tell me to look at the bottom 10% income bracket and see how they're doing. Incidentally these people are the best economic citizens because if you give them money they'll spend every cent of it because they need to buy food and energy, use health care and pay rent. In other words if a rich person gets a million they (if they're sane) spend a fract…

[flagged]

Or hoarding real estate.. which is not particularly productive since it turns out higher prices don’t really stimulate supply sufficiently.

Also its not exactly obvious how much inflated stock market valuations benefit the economy that much or at all.

Re: Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

#45

Post by bryanlarsen »

BariumBlue wrote: post #10

Seems like housing again: > Rents have surged in recent years, driven by tourism, foreign investment and a shortage of affordable housing. The cost of housing now consumes one of the largest shares of disposable income in the European Union My impression is that where housing is expensive, there will be complaints of unaffordability (obviously), but also vice versa, that where there is unaffordability, housing always…

The article gives a dozen reasons why people in Greece feel poor. Housing is just one of them. A big one, perhaps, but there are many others in the article.

It's interesting that housing is the one that all the HN commenters pick out to comment on. It's probably the most universal complaint, the one that's easiest to sympathize with from halfway around the world.

Re: Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

#46

Post by neves »

abirch wrote: post #8
samiv wrote: post #4

There's no paradox here. Distribution of wealth matters. Rich got richer and everyone else didn't. Simple as that.

As Ray Dalio has mentioned, you should measure results on how it impacts the bottom 51% of the people (the majority) it's a lot more illustrative than looking at the average.

Sometimes I think economists don't know what a median is.

Re: Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

#47

Post by dataflow »

spystath wrote: post #28
BariumBlue wrote: post #10

Seems like housing again: > Rents have surged in recent years, driven by tourism, foreign investment and a shortage of affordable housing. The cost of housing now consumes one of the largest shares of disposable income in the European Union My impression is that where housing is expensive, there will be complaints of unaffordability (obviously), but also vice versa, that where there is unaffordability, housing always…

You are right that it's due to housing but in my opinion most of unaffordability comes from immense pressure due to tourism. Housing situation is better outside the touristy areas (and Athens). If anything Greece has seen massive housebuilding up until the economic crash in the early 10s. I remember block of flats appearing left and right in most major cities in a span of months. They still do but in a lot of cases t…

> Why let a flat for €500 monthly when you can charge €150 per night?

Isn't a tax the obvious solution here?

Re: Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

#48

Post by BurningFrog »

"Poor" is a relative concept!

If everyone gets 10x richer, half the people will still be in the poorer half, and will still feel poor in some sense.

This is surely not the only factor in this story, but it's you need to keep it in mind in these discussions.

Re: Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

#49

Post by 1970-01-01 »

In no particular order:

- Per capital GDP still awful

- Quality of life continues to get worse thanks to rising global temperature.

- Everything else worth doing is still fairly terrible compared to better-off EU neighbors since tourism remains the economic staple. That strangles any other economic programs from working.

Re: Greece Is Richer. So Why Do So Many Greeks Still Feel Poor?

#50

Post by aleph_minus_one »

jedimastert wrote: post #31
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way this wealth inequality is so common around the world. makes me wonder if the next time the pitchforks come out, it will be some kind of global uprising. [...] Or are the elite better able to control the masses in this age? I rather believe that the individual problems in each country are very different (even though you summarize them by "this wealth inequality is so common around the world"). Additionally,…

> Additionally, it often happens that the interests of people in one country are antagonistic to the interests of people in another country. I find this honestly kind of difficult to believe, except when it comes to distractions by the people who want to stay in power

Just to give one class of examples:

Should a country implement some very nationalist policies that serve the interests of the not so well-off people in its own country, but will be against the interests of other countries and their people?

Think of the uprise of right-wing, nationalist parties in many European countries that often present themselves as "the new worker parties", i.e. they intend to implement policies that are good for the workers in their own country, but on the other hand make it very clear that they have not the interests of people of other EU countries in mind.

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