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The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German

#61

Post by stevoski »

arethuza wrote: post #41
kqr2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Substitute electrician for farmer... From http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/9/49503 : Larisa, which has about 250,000 inhabitants, is the capital of the agricultural region of Thessaly in central Greece. Larissa “is the talk of the town in Stuttgart, the cradle of the German automobile industry, and, particularly, in the Porsche headquarters there”, since it “tops the list, world-wide, for the per-capita ownership of P…

An awful lot of these "facts" have been shown to wrong: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17702226

Not just wrong but completely absurd, not even close to having a factual basis.

Re: The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German

#62

Post by kahawe »

kamaal wrote: post #28
arethuza wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for sake of argument, if it all went on buying Porsches and Mercedes then it's pretty easy to tell where the money went....

Right, It went to Germany. But you can't hold them responsible for this mess. Germany is a export based country, they are also more productive than the Greeks. They have managed their money well. The only thing is that the Euro facilitated such things more easily. But Germany can't be blamed for it. Imagine you go to a supermarket and buy like crazy. You know you don't have a way of paying it back, but you keep buyin…

> It went to Germany.

The last numbers I read for Greece's imports from Germany were very small, in the low one-digit range. So I am not sure this is valid to say "it went to Germany" although at the beginning of the crisis this was a picture the Greek newspapers were all too happy to paint: the wealthy, greedy Germans who got fat and rich off of all those Greeks buying so much from them...

Re: The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German

#63

Post by muyuu »

kamaal wrote: post #58
muyuu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh it cracked me up too. "Well BBC ran a show last night" therefore it must be true and I can now give you all my expert opinion in the matter. Private debt is much higher in the UK than in Greece, both in relative and in absolute terms. Public debt is probably second in line to Greece, it's a close race with Italy and maybe some smaller Eastern countries. I wonder if the BBC covered that last night.

Fine, I never said borrowing was wrong. I said borrowing without having means to pay back is wrong. You almost make it look as though Greece did nothing wrong in borrowing, but now Germany and alike are committing a huge sin in not bailing them out. UK, Italy and all those countries you mentioned might definitely have the same debt. But the situation there is different because those people have a way of paying their…

Germany has massive part on it by enforcing such shockingly low borrowing rates across the Eurozone.

It completely destroyed countries with immature Real Estate landscapes, countries used to high inflation rates that collectively shot themselves in the foot.

Germany and France took no hostages when they were stagnating and failed to meet EU requirements. They gave absolutely no regard to these countries and now they are paying for it. They will either way, because that's their main market, Europe. Because it's not just Greece that's over-borrowed, it's most of the eurozone including Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, ... basically most of the Eurozone by GDP.

Re: The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German

#64

Post by stevoski »

kamaal wrote: post #58
muyuu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh it cracked me up too. "Well BBC ran a show last night" therefore it must be true and I can now give you all my expert opinion in the matter. Private debt is much higher in the UK than in Greece, both in relative and in absolute terms. Public debt is probably second in line to Greece, it's a close race with Italy and maybe some smaller Eastern countries. I wonder if the BBC covered that last night.

Fine, I never said borrowing was wrong. I said borrowing without having means to pay back is wrong. You almost make it look as though Greece did nothing wrong in borrowing, but now Germany and alike are committing a huge sin in not bailing them out. UK, Italy and all those countries you mentioned might definitely have the same debt. But the situation there is different because those people have a way of paying their…

Spending more than you earn can sometimes be quite healthy, for an individual, for a company, and for an economy. It's called investment.

An example: when you buy take a mortgage to buy a house several times your annual income, you've spent more than you earned. Typically you need two or three decades to pay off the extra money you spent.

Re: The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German

#65

Post by varjag »

zanny wrote: post #49
varjag wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greece is a democracy. The government is representative of its people.

Is the US a democracy by the same standards? Saying you have a democracy does not make it so, the actions of a government acting out the will of its people makes it so.

The perfect democracy achieving the will of all voters is not achievable, as different groups may promote conflicting policies. There are however parts that are consistent with all populace, and as the cabinets change you definitely can see what they do have in common.

Greek politicians are Greek people too, with same cultural background and overall attitudes prevailing in the society. Ditto for Greek government employees (a huge sector of their economy), who are there to enforce the regulations.

If there is a culture of tax evasion, you can't expect the government to fix it just because there is a tax code in the writing. People's attitude have to change.

Re: The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German

#66

Post by kahawe »

amueller wrote: post #24

Fun thing that this article doesn't mention: in Germany it is very, very common to work extra hours that are not paid and not in the books. This is particularly true for high profile jobs.

> in Germany it is very, very common to work extra hours that are not paid and not in the books

I am working in Germany and what are you talking about? More specifically which industry? The employment laws here are so ridiculously pro-employee that I basically need to "excuse" and justify myself if I was to work more than X hours a week. And typically, at least in IT, a certain amount of overtime (or a "flat charge") is in your contract and you get more salary for that - more than the so called "collective agreement" requires your employer to pay you. So for most people in regular jobs, I doubt this holds true. Maybe small IT startups try to squeeze the youngens by circumventing all laws and regulations? At least where I am working, typical German bigger but not huge company, you can set your clock by how punctual they show up to and especially leave work; shortly after 5pm they can start cleaning here because that's when practically the whole building is empty except for some poor souls like me.

"High profile", executive level jobs are different, that is true but this is to be expected at that level and pay rate and I doubt you will find any other country where this doesn't hold true.

Re: The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German

#67

Post by zerostar07 »

varjag wrote: post #40
zerostar07 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was (and mostly still is) so easy to avoid taxes in Greece that it's fair to say the burden is on the government more than the people. I believe it's difficult to make people tax-conscious when they see that it's so easy for everyone around them to steal. The tax authorities here are corrupt, underqualified, and have a very low rate of tax collection. It's so bad that it had better be replaced altogether.

Greece is a democracy. The government is representative of its people.

That's a fair point. But it's true that the government took advantage of the tools offered to the country for free and unchecked by the EU (namely, subsidies and cheap credit lines) to lull people into a false sense of euphoria (To think that in 2000-2007 governments were proud for having the highest-growing economy in the EU (with borrowed money, of course)). There is an issue with EU's general lack of adequate checks on how EU money is spent in individual countries (esp. the south).

Re: The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German

#68

Post by kahawe »

One thing that I always find very unsettling when reading things like that: how Germany is somehow always an epitome of efficiency and productiveness. I am working here and I absolutely do NOT perceive it like that and friends who are also working here confirmed that impression. We are constantly swapping horror-stories of stupid bureaucracy, lengthy extremely bloated processes, having to do things five times, lazy people, stupid people, people who have no idea about their job and no education, tons of stupid "office wars/games" going on, lengthy discussions about very petty things and just for the sake of "but I was actually right" and so on and so forth...

The only conclusion is then, it is much much MUCH worse elsewhere? Really?? (Or is this just some sort of "halo effect"?)

Re: The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German

#69

Post by zerostar07 »

Luyt wrote: post #55
zerostar07 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about everything else? Are gas stations open on sundays? Pharmacies in the afternoon? Are government offices open after 13:00?

The government closes down after 13:00 for the whole afternoon? Or only for a siesta?

most administrative services close at 13:00 for the public. Still, the greater issue is not the hours worked, it's the fact that it's unacceptably slow. For example, most accounting offices employ people whose job is to wait in queues outside government offices all day (such as tax and social security offices).

Re: The average Greek is working a full 40% longer than the average German

#70

Post by f4stjack »

I don't know about Greece but the statistics in the page are quite disturbing to read. You do long work hours to be more productive, but in the end (probably it has more factors than that but I am simplifying it) it doesn't do you any good so you do overtime, which damages your productivity even more...

This is the most damned vicious cycle I've ever seen I think...

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