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leerazer's review against another edition
4.0
This journalistic account of the author's travels through post-crisis Greece is an eye-opener, and does a good job of blending personal level interviews with the big picture of the current state of Greece. The introduction, by itself, is worth the price of the book, being an excellent long-read summary of how the current Greek crisis developed and how it is playing out. The succeeding seven chapters connect individual stories to this big picture, providing a close up look at the widespread corruption of Greek state and society, the immigration crisis, and the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party. If there's a weak spot it is that Angelos did not spend enough time with Syriza party officials, though their major role in the Greek crisis took center stage immediately following the publication of the book.
Angelos, the son of Greek immigrants to America, is willing to be a sympathetic ear to the Greeks, but the facts of the case, so to speak, usually leave him, and the reader, shaking their heads in dismay. It is clear that Greece never should have been allowed to enter the Euro, but for two facts: one, European sentimentality about Greece as the birthplace of European civilization (though Germany, it should be noted, was always skeptical), and secondly, the outright fabrication and fraud of the Greek government to make their economy appear to meet the requirements of Euro membership.
Once in the Euro, the Greek government found much joy in taking the money that European banks were only to happy to lend it and, in local parlance, eating it. Corrupt government officials throughout the land became rich, but they also spread the money around. Greece has a high percentage of its workforce on the state books, thanks to a Constitution that makes it almost impossible to fire government workers, and a tradition of winning politicians giving jobs to supporters. The result is way more bureaucrats than are needed, many of whom are in fact incompetent. With the influx of Euros, the government massively increased their salaries and pensions, which became impossible to sustain once the crisis hit and the creditor nations took a look at the books.
When the easy loans stopped, the government was hamstrung by rampant tax evasion. Sure, tax evasion is an issue everywhere, but Greece takes it to an Olympic level. When the government tried to collect missing tax revenue, it ran into the corruption issue. Auditors, when they found money owed, relied on a 40-40-20 formula: 40% of the amount owed the citizen was allowed to keep, 40% of the amount owed went to the auditor, and 20% went to the government.
Germany, that paragon of responsible virtue, reacted with unsympathetic rage to the financial predicament Greece quickly found itself in. Angelos finds evidence to support the view that Germany intended to punish Greece with terms as harsh as possible in exchange for its assistance.
Angelos, the son of Greek immigrants to America, is willing to be a sympathetic ear to the Greeks, but the facts of the case, so to speak, usually leave him, and the reader, shaking their heads in dismay. It is clear that Greece never should have been allowed to enter the Euro, but for two facts: one, European sentimentality about Greece as the birthplace of European civilization (though Germany, it should be noted, was always skeptical), and secondly, the outright fabrication and fraud of the Greek government to make their economy appear to meet the requirements of Euro membership.
Once in the Euro, the Greek government found much joy in taking the money that European banks were only to happy to lend it and, in local parlance, eating it. Corrupt government officials throughout the land became rich, but they also spread the money around. Greece has a high percentage of its workforce on the state books, thanks to a Constitution that makes it almost impossible to fire government workers, and a tradition of winning politicians giving jobs to supporters. The result is way more bureaucrats than are needed, many of whom are in fact incompetent. With the influx of Euros, the government massively increased their salaries and pensions, which became impossible to sustain once the crisis hit and the creditor nations took a look at the books.
When the easy loans stopped, the government was hamstrung by rampant tax evasion. Sure, tax evasion is an issue everywhere, but Greece takes it to an Olympic level. When the government tried to collect missing tax revenue, it ran into the corruption issue. Auditors, when they found money owed, relied on a 40-40-20 formula: 40% of the amount owed the citizen was allowed to keep, 40% of the amount owed went to the auditor, and 20% went to the government.
Germany, that paragon of responsible virtue, reacted with unsympathetic rage to the financial predicament Greece quickly found itself in. Angelos finds evidence to support the view that Germany intended to punish Greece with terms as harsh as possible in exchange for its assistance.
The punitive nature of the initial bailout agreement - the bringing out of the bats, in other words - somewhat quieted the German electorate's misgivings about helping the Greeks. German chancellor Angela Merkel made sure to emphasize the toughness of the agreement to her voters, assuring them the Greeks were being adequately chastened, that moral hazard was being avoided. Other eurozone countries would "do all they can to avoid this themselves," Merkel told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.While this book makes clear that Greece has no room to argue that it does not deserve harsh consequences, despite its attempts to do just that, the wisdom of Germany and other eurozone countries making them more harsh than perhaps necessary is certainly open to question. As the final chapter impicitly suggests, an unintended consequence might be the rise to power of a fascist, neo-Nazi party.
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