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Comment by craftoman | Hacker News Reader

What are you talking about? That's even worst excuse than blaming Romans for conquering Greece 2000 years ago. Greece had some great opportunities since the 60s but they never settled down some things up. Half of Greeks were spending fortunes at night clubs and bars. If you said anything about saving money back then they would probably laugh at you. Have you ever met a real Greek?

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Well I consider my self a "real" Greek (being Greek and having lived here all my 37 years of life).

I'm not giving excuses to why Greece has come to this state; this is a very long discussion but I don't think that the Greeks are the only one to blame.

Yes some of the things you mention are true but what's the cause of this? I mean why would an average Greek buy a Mercedes to show-off instead of invest these money to his business as western EU people would do? That's what I tried to (I guess very naively explain): This is a culture thing; it seems that the Greeks have a different mentality than the western Europeans, a mentality that is closer to the Middle Easterns.

You told you that? Buying a Mercedes and start flexing around considered a Turkish thing in Germany. North Europeans are mostly saving money essentially for buying a house and then start some other various investments.

First, the Roman thing was simply an illustration that relationship societies are not a Turkish thing; the roots of them are ancient. That far back, I suspect most societies were relationship-based, very much including Greek society before invasion.

Second, let me get this straight. Your point of reference is that the Greek social medium since at least the 60s discouraged saving, and you’re using this as an argument against this being a cultural impedance problem?

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