[HN Gopher] Greece's Six-Day Workweek Is a Recipe for Disaster
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Greece's Six-Day Workweek Is a Recipe for Disaster
Author : toomuchtodo
Score : 22 points
Date : 2024-07-28 16:11 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jacobin.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jacobin.com)
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But the one thing that is sure is
| that their previous model didn't work. Everybody cheated the
| state. The state itself cheated and lied to the EU.
|
| And it ended up with Greece defaulting on its public debt.
|
| It may be yet another disaster but let's not downplay what
| created an actual disaster.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _It may be yet another disaster but let 's not downplay what
| created an actual disaster_
|
| What created the "actual disaster" is a totally different set
| of events, to go into here, but the start is the gradual de-
| inudstrialization through EU imposed mandates and "five year
| plans", imposed across the periphery, for the benefit of German
| and (to a lesser degree) French exports.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Can you elaborate more on the EU mandates which led to de-
| inudstrialization. I just want to learn more on this topic so
| any resources will be helpful.
| coldtea wrote:
| The EU development was akin to putting two dozen of
| sardines or so into a tank along with a couple of sharks
| and hopping for the best. Oh, and they all get their vote
| so it's all democratic, who cares if the shardines can be
| unilaterally economically and politically bullied to vote
| in favor of the shark'?
|
| This tells parts of the story going back:
|
| https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781315542
| 9...
|
| If you know what to look for, you can find tons of sources
| on various aspects of the process, e.g:
|
| https://www.robert-schuman.eu/en/european-
| issues/750-europe-...
|
| or:
|
| https://www.politico.eu/article/european-central-bank-
| nepoti...
| vondur wrote:
| Hasn't Germany deindustrialized itself? I heard that Bayer
| moved manufacturing out to China as they were worried that
| they wouldn't have enough power during the previous winter.
| malux85 wrote:
| Flogging an aging population is only going to cause the small
| amount of talent you have to leave.
|
| The same thing happens with companies - good people have
| options, crappy people don't. If you make the conditions worse
| the good people leave and you get stuck with a bunch of dead
| weight.
|
| And while it's true that "the previous model didn't work"
| that's not justification for making another terrible decision -
| bad decisions are net negative, unlimited in magnitude and
| numerous, so sticking with a broken model while you come up
| with a better plan is better than taking an enormous step
| downwards
| nradov wrote:
| What would you suggest as a better alternative? (I am not in
| favor of a six-day workweek.)
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Drastic, but if you literally cannot pay your labor, maybe
| a country that can annex you can.
|
| If it's not that drastic yet, you attract more bees with
| honey instead of smoke. Apparently a big problem is that
| Greece is a great tourist spot but awful to live in. So
| change that. You can make a stricter tax regime to make
| sure people pay, but the first step to recovering is making
| sude your labor can love in your country to begin with.
| netsharc wrote:
| You're parroting the EU Commission/IMF/ECB line, and not
| looking at it any deeper.
|
| The Greek economy wasn't good enough to join the Euro, but the
| EU wanted them in anyway, and pretended to not notice. Why?
| Probably because German banks lobbied the German government,
| because joining the common currency meant a lot of security,
| and the German banks could loan to them knowing if the debts go
| bad, the ECB/other Euro economies would have to bail them out,
| i.e. it's "privatize the wins, socialize the losses" for the
| banks.
|
| So Greece joined the Euro, all the banks offered loans, the
| Greeks all thought "Wahey, booming economy, let's spend, spend,
| spend!" (and don't say "Those greedy lazy Greeks!", this is a
| natural reaction, just look at the subprime mortgage times of
| the US before it blew up and almost brought down the world
| economy), and when it all went bad, the German government
| fought hard to bail them out (with EU taxpayer money) because
| it was bailing out German banks, despite them offering
| irresponsible loans.
|
| The Greek Syriza government and Yanis Varoufakis fought hard
| against the measures, e.g. austerity (proven to be bullshit,
| just look at Tory Britain), wanting a loan haircut to punish
| the irresponsible banks and the bureaucrats in Brussels
| preferred a government that would just take their "punishment"
| quietly...
| brnt wrote:
| The best part was that most (all?) of the bailout money never
| went to Greece; it went straight to German and French banks.
| Arnt wrote:
| Pity that the article doesn't discuss the effect of the reform on
| the informal economy. To me, this (or any) reform should bring
| more employment into the taxpaying, insured part of the economy,
| and whether it does what it IMO should is an important thing to
| discuss.
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