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Comment by drzaiusapelord | Hacker News Reader

>That's not the whole story. The reason Greece is where it is today is because of the cruel austerity package imposed upon them by their European creditors.

History doesn't start in 2010. Greece pretty much lied to get into the EU and is a badly run country, at best, and a corrupt hell-hole at worst. Low retirement ages, low taxation due to fraud, government being the largest employer, lack of diversification, etc.

Its easy to take this hip anti-EU position for upvotes here, but you're defending a shittily run country in almost every respect.

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> Low retirement ages

Please don't spread this toxic myth about Greece. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/world-affairs/2012/05/expl...

I don't necessarily think it's a myth. The author cites old data and then waves his hands and future predictions. http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/04/75-of-greek-pensi...

“In the public sector, 7.91% of pensioners retire between the ages of 26 and 50, 23.64% between 51 and 55, and 43.53% between 56 and 61. In IKA, 4.44% of pensioners retire between the ages of 26 and 50, 12.83% retire between 51 and 55, and 58.61% retire between 56 and 61. Meanwhile, in the so-called healthy funds, 91.6% of people retire before the national retirement age limit,” Vroutsis said.

See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/04/75-of-greek-pensi...

Government is the largest employer in most economies. 40% of the US' GDP is accounted for by the government, over 50 in Nordic countries.

All developing economies have corruption and productivity issues, the problem isn't that Greece is below the European par, but that they haven't been given enough time, and European creditors set them back a decade.

Sorry, could you explain where the 40% number came from? I see 22% (which I calculated as $3.8T US 2015 fiscal budget [1] divided by $16.77T US GDP [2])

[1] https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...

[2] https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&...

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/16/governm...

Here you go.

Given your view, which I largely share, shouldn't the banks suffer as well for lending so much money to such a shittily run country? The so called bailout has been nothing more than a means of giving money to German and French banks without the German and French governments doing so in a direct manner. Germans and French get to blame lazy Greeks without having to blame their bankers.

Apparently, it depends on if the banks hired any Greeks. If they did, then yes.

Greece didn't lie to get into the EU, that would be the eurozone instead.

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