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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?

#91

Post by card_zero »

kubb wrote: post #41
onraglanroad wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The benefit is uncertain whenever anybody spends money on anything beyond survival. If you go around asking investors "are you using that money properly and beneficially", for consistency you also have to nag the poor with the same question. Should you put a bet on a horse? Is it really necessary that you visit anybody far away? What's the benefit in dyeing your hair? In both cases, you'd be enforcing arbitrary wisdom instead of acknowledging your fallibility.

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

#92

Post by padjo »

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.

Capitalism has spent the last 10 years burning billions on the metaverse and crypto with apparently no repercussions for those involved so I think their credibility as custodians of wealth is questionable.

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

#93

Post by wqaatwt »

microgpt wrote: post #88
wqaatwt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I implied it did. I actually think that free market competition has been the main driving force behind human progress for quite a while now. The issue is that the “winning condition” of capitalism results in the complete subversion of that process. So it’s always a balance.

Free market competition is the opposite of capitalism though. Free market competition means that markets are free, but capitalism means that markets are controlled by the richest.

They inseparable, though? i.e. every market participant is incentivized to accumulate as much “capital” in any way they can. Competitors keep them in check which leaves a bigger share to consumers. Historically that has not been a stable system and at some point one or a couple of companies end up winning and there is no one to prevent them from doing anything they want.

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

#94

Post by tau255 »

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.

This sounds a lot like trickle down economy. It did not really help anyone other than capital owners.

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

#95

Post by amelius »

rcxdude wrote: post #27
amelius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median is usually used for this; it throws away outliers on both sides.

This is not quite the same as the median: it is possible for the bottom 50% to improve but for the median to stay the same (i.e. imagine if everyone in the bottom 50% suddenly equaled the best of them). But the median is a lot better than the mean for not being distorted by large changes in the top and bottom percentiles.

You can use other quantiles if you want.

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

#96

Post by microgpt »

wqaatwt wrote: post #93
microgpt wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free market competition is the opposite of capitalism though. Free market competition means that markets are free, but capitalism means that markets are controlled by the richest.

They inseparable, though? i.e. every market participant is incentivized to accumulate as much “capital” in any way they can. Competitors keep them in check which leaves a bigger share to consumers. Historically that has not been a stable system and at some point one or a couple of companies end up winning and there is no one to prevent them from doing anything they want.

It's only been a stable system as long as the richest were only rich enough to keep doing what they're doing in the marketplace, and not rich enough to buy or become the marketplace. That is one reason excessive inequality is destructive to society.

It is no problem if the best snack vendor can afford to buy the biggest snack truck. In fact that should be encouraged so we can have more of the best snacks. It's also no problem if he can afford a mansion. He deserves it for working so hard on snacks. It's bad if he can do anything that negatively affects his competitors, like buying the adjacent stands to leave empty, buying up all the snack ingredients so nobody else can get them, bribing the market manager, or making a law that all snacks must be french fries.

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

#97

Post by phs318u »

password54321 wrote: post #62
wqaatwt wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? That seems entirely tangential. Unless your point that economic inequality inherently accelerates technological progress (which seems valid at least to some extent)?

You don't think capitalism played a role in eliminating poverty?

Has it? If you take a global perspective since the Industrial Revolution it seems some parts of the world excelled at the cost of some other parts (through exploitation and expropriation of land, people and goods). Poverty may have been effectively eliminated in the west and north, not so much in the east and south.

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

#98

Post by _DeadFred_ »

Spooky23 wrote: post #66
lebuffon wrote: post #11

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. Perhaps accelerated by social media. Or are the elite better able to control the masses in this age?

Nah, it will be triggered by a debt crisis. Remember the plurality of the rich are working off asset loans on paper wealth. Those credit lines get cut by an event, that triggers an asset sell off which creates a vicious cycle.

So the pitchforks will be the poors forming a mutual fund and busting/pump dumping the riches stocks?

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

#99

Post by jedimastert »

loeg wrote: post #86
jedimastert wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet we are also living in some of the strongest wealth inequality in the last 100 years at least. https://ourworldindata.org/economic-inequality

So what? Inequality is not inherently bad.

That's a pretty strong assertion just throw out like it's obvious

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

#100

Post by robocat »

EgregiousCube wrote: post #34
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…

Why are prices up even though population is down over the past ten years? Did everybody decide to move to the city or something?

Somehow the economic indicators feel the same as looking at crypto.

> Between 2009 and the trough of the bailout years in 2016, average household wealth fell by roughly 35%

35% of the land didn't disappear and I'm guessing 35% of the buildings didn't disappear... So what changed was the measurements... GDP values seem even shadier.

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