The Origins of the Greek debt crisis
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- Опубліковано 11 чер 2024
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In this video we discuss and examine the reasons for the 2008 Greek debt crisis. We debunk the nasty myth of the "lazy Mediterranean" and show how centuries of political, social, and economic developments that began with the Ottoman Empire are ultimately to blame for this crisis. I hope you enjoy it.
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Sponsorship by XP Pen (0:00)
Ottoman Legacies (2:52)
What is a Low trust Society? (4:47)
Independence continues low trust (7:22)
Fascism undermines the State (11:17)
the corrupt right (14:28)
the corrupt left (16:41)
The broken public sector (18:39)
A summary (20:34)
THIS IS INCORRECT CHECK PINNED COMMENT (22:04)
What comes now? (22:29)
Outro (25:11)
You might be interested in this video too: • How the Greeks created...
Music royalties:
Greece by SfxValley: • 100% FREE WORLD MUSIC ...
Piano Sonata no. 11, K. 331 - III. Alla Turca
Violin Concerto in F minor, RV 297 'Winter' - Complete Concerto
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Corrections and adressing critizisms:
1: At 22:04 this is embarrassingly wrong. And this is entirely my fault. I screwed up the math here when I tried to calculate the costs the first time. I thought that rail infrastructure costs would be a great comparative value that could illustrate the costs well to average viewers, but I completely screwed up the math when I calculated the first time. The costs of modernizing European rail to highspeed rail would lie at 1.4 trillion Euros. I calculated it again after all the video work was already done and the video uploaded. So the Greek bailout would only cover a quarter of the cost for such an infrastructure project. I am very sorry for this mistake.
2; At 11:48 I for some stupid reason say "over 100 000" when I should have said 400 000. I do not know why I made that mistake but you should be made aware of it.
3: At 25:05 I screwed up the audio overlap in editing and didn't notice until I uploaded the video. I am sorry for that. What i am saying here is "Greece however is a great example of the opposite, namely how corruption can destroy a state"
4: "Why do you not address the eurozone and how Greek membership in the common currency contributed to the crisis?" Because everyone else does, duh. I am pointing out something that I believe everyone is overlooking.
I legit thought that ending glitch was intentional, like as if the Greek corruption ball was pausing the narration and about to come through the screen or some shit.
That’s a good idea for a future video.
you also misspelled debt in the thumbnail
I will keep this in mind when I get around to watching this excellent video. Always great to know you put factual accuracy as top priority and callout your own mistakes.
I wish you can do a reupload with the corrections amended
Jeez your videos have alot of mistakes
Greek here living in Greece. You mentioned in your video that Greece has to maintain a surplus until 2060 and that the burden is placed in the millennial and post millennial generation. However as a member of generation z in university I noticed that a lot of Greek youths essentially want to finish university and move to western and northern Europe, what is happening essentially is that a large segment of the most productive part of the population is leaving the country.
So future is dark for Greece?
One can hope that Greece and the countries of Eastern Europe also suffering from this predicament may draw some benefits from trans-remigration in the future, perhaps?
This happened in Ireland too. During the crash hundreds of thousands of workers emigrated to Australia, New Zealand or the Middle East and migrants returned to their home countries. This has left huge skills shortages and due to the housing crisis there’s not really much reason for any to move back. Most of the crisis countries’ societies are built and maintained for the benefit of the boomer generation.
Back in the 90s a lot of my brothers colleagues in university in London were Greek, studying maters and PHDs to avoid military service. I guess that was a tradition only the privileged could afford.
@@echoambiance4470 Well as a finn I do like the idea of living in the warmth and sun light. Living in greece is tempting, I would propably be beneficial for the greek economy as I indeed do pay my taxes and like investing money I save from my salary. Propably wont happen as I dont speak the language but many rich people from finland move to spain and other mediterrean countries for their low living cost and amazing weather.
That is what i literally did, the high unemployment, high competition even for terrible jobs, low pay and high cost of living just forces you out of the country.
As a greek, this low trust society deal struck a bit of a nerve.
It made me reminisce how when I moved to Western Europe, at the beginning I thought people there were kinda quaint, naive almost (in Switzerland, what looked like free newspapers was actually something you were supposed to pay for, out of pure good faith! the madness, I thought), they would say hi to you on the street, and were oddly willing to follow rules and protocol imposed by some unfamiliar entity (and to my surprise, they would defend that entity when I suggested it might be easier to just ignore it).
This distrust is deep in me, without even wanting to. I never say hi to my neighbours back in Greece, I make sure the door is locked, I don't let them see inside my house, I'd rather not talk to them, and in general I don't even get along with greeks abroad as they bring all this distrust back in me. It's like being with greeks makes me feel like some dirty schemer and it sickens me.
I also grew extremely contemptuous of this attitude where you're going to try and land some cushy governement job for some good for nothing nephew of yours as if he could never take care of himself. It's frankly infantilising for the nephew at this point and feels asphyxiating just being in that environment. Not to mention the normality with which you're likely gonna be stuck living with your parents for most of your life, without agency.
I've changed as a person, and grew to expect a functional government and individual agency and liberty(outside of Greece, for better or worse), but damn me if "low trust society" didn't hit the mark.
Dude that is fascinating. The type of expectations and mentalities something as integral as trust in society can create is really interesting to see.
"Damn Scots, they ruined Scotland!"
that seems to be (at least from my perspective) the main reason or at least one of them why migrants arent all that welcome in my country because trust not directly in the government but the state is in general very high and when someone acts in the way it is fitting for a low trust society like many in the balkans it looks in my country shady or deceitful at best and outright criminal at worst
I remember traveling to Europe and seeing the amount of trust people had(I'm not Greece). People in my country will buy multiple locks for their bikycles restaurants/bitch chairs will all ways will be locked whit chains or put insind. In Europe I seen people put down byscle out side stors whit out locks and chairs on the beach ate night3
I don't trust you being Greek with a name like "Vladimir". Georgian? 😇
My grandmother worked as a tax collector in Greece. I have a few stories from her but one comes to mind. She went to inspect an auto repair shop with a colleague. When they found a minor violation they chose to inform the owner instead of fining him. She later found out her colleague had visited the repair shop later that day and threatened to close it down if they didn't pay the fine to her personally. Her boss refused to report it to the higher-ups in fear of being ostracized and denied promotions in the future.
Corruption became a part of the steps of the ladder. Damn.
@@MrTigracho corruption and the culture of not being a .
@@hak525 Don't look now, but not reporting a crime IS corruption. Literally.
if you are Greek and cannot narrate at least *one* story of taxation corruption suffered or perpetrated by a member of your immediate family, you are not actually Greek
“Seize the means of corruption” probably the best Kraut line of all time
*"Everything inside my ass, nothing outside my ass, no one pulling from my ass"*
Mussolini - 1938
100% he did said that
"The socialists seized the means of corruption" made me laugh out loud 😂
Pinochet helicopters for all of them
Me too, that is such a brilliant line!
they do, as always
Thx. I hadn't noticed.
@@HoangNguyen-go1ne sad :(
6:30 That's a very interesting observation, which explains a question I've always wondered about:
Here in the Netherlands most houses have a large window in the front and in the back. When walking past a Dutch house you can see everything on the 1st floor and the garden. Foreigners often point out how weird it is you can see everything. I checked government statistics and according to them, the Netherlands has the 3rd highest level of trust in the EU (behind Finland and Denmark, respectively).
I know this isn't the point of the video but I found this incredibly interesting.
hi history scope i really love your videos man so when is you next video is coming out dude it been so long
I always find it fascinating and kinda scary when I‘m in 🇳🇱 like should I look at the windows or not, in Poland we tend to keep it to ourselves and don’t show what we have inside our houses. It may corelate with the level of trust in society.
@Sketchy Stuff Germans are crazy about their privacy.
We are waiting for your next upload History Scope. But take your time because you do make very in depth videos
I've also heard it had to do with, what some people called, "Calvinist" tendencies to for social control. Simply put: it allows your neighbours to see if you are partaking in any sinful behaviour
This summary was eye-opening. In Afghanistan we literally call our houses in many regions „fortress“ with walls even higher than 2 meters. I think we are the country with most extreme form of Low Trust Society problem and its no wonder after thousand of years dealing with invading foreign powers.
Afghanistan could have it even worse though cause "Greece" is an ancient concept with a strong national identity. While there is low trust there is a mutual agreement of a Greek identity. Afghanistan though is a completely artificial creation. It pretty much existed as a wild buffer region between Russian central Asia and British India. A land too rugged and poor for either side to really bother with.
Afghanistan in many ways is a remnant of the colonial era as a land considered too worthless to civilize yet too strategically located to just leave alone.
If memory serves, it was invaded by GREEKS!! (A coincidence?........)
I like the house styles in Afghanistan
Especially when they have that internal courtyard area
In 1995 my family moved from a small Greek town with chest-high fences to a nearby one with 2m tall walls around houses. Let me tell you: the difference in the mentality/attitude of the locals was staggering!
It's actually from your religion. The quran is an interesting read, no doubt. Did you know that mohammed had a giant veiny red cancerous growth on his back he would show as proof of his prophethood? He also said the reason people wake up with bad breath is that satan pees in their mouth when they are asleep. I'm not even making this up.
As a German, with a Greek father, this one hits closer to home and the truth than I'd like. My father always, always mistrusts other Greeks, even friends and extended family.
How does he feel about moving from a low trust society to a high trust society?
youre greek
@@shittymcrvids3119 Do you really think that one profoundly contemplates such things?
@@Hamza-qs7ez Okay.
@@Hamza-qs7ez German mother and Greek father, which decides the child's nationality?
As a Mexican doing a year abroad in Germany I recently had the chance to visit Athens. Beautiful city a lot of really interesting history and a lovely weather compared to my temporal home in Germany, but I must admit, I felt weirdly at home…
Mexico = American Greece. The only differences being the crime rates, but even they're not that different...
@@nikoladoctorov553 besides the violence rates I think the fact that we funnel most of the oil profits to support the government spending has also allowed for a more “balanced” budget. But yeah, the “ghost economy” or as we call it “informal economy” is also extremely large here in Mexico
@@JARC99_ do you think mexico will ever become a prosperous country?
I'd say that people from latin America have a lot of thing in common with us Mediterraneans. That might be the reason why you feel at home. I hope you enjoyed your time!
Lol
This is so true for the entire Balkan. Here only 2 things are 100% true:
1. Nobody trusts the government (be it national, regional or municipal) or their neighbours
2. A connection is everything
same in south america
@@celldouglas494 i'd say its the same for latin america in general..
That's because all the Balkan states were under Ottoman rule
@@outerspace7391 same is true in Turkey as well
Same in India
You've mentioned Spain and specifically Franco's regime quite frequently reciently. I don't want to pressure if it's something you're not interested in, but I believe a video on Spain's political and institutional problems from the 19th century onwards would perfectly match your style. Specifically, the democratic restauration after Franco's death is very interesting and there are many great books about it.
such as?
@@PacoCotero1221 For example, 'Is Spain different?' is a collection of essays which compares Franco's dictatorship and Spain's cultural and political developments to other european countries. 'Ghost of Spain' is I believe the most well known and mostly focuses on current spanish culture and how it developed. Some academic papers that cover the democratic transition are 'The politics of contemporary Spain' by Sebastian Balfour or 'Revisiting Spain's transition to democracy' by Charles Powell. If you can read spanish, 'Historia contemporánea de España' by Jordi Canal is my personal favorite and covers everything from the Napoleonic wars to present time.
No sé si el duche pueda hacer éste vídeo porque se metería en territorio de corrupción alemana y de las sociedades de "alta confianza" genocidas.
@@sct1718 bruh? es austríaco
@@PacoCotero1221 y el pintor también b r u h
that Greek friend’s quote scene was so similar to Mongolia.
Your average Mongolian,
is a socialist when he needs public services, a communist when he is fired, a liberal artist when he wants to impress a woman, a libertarian when he has to pay taxes, a nationalist when he talks about Chinese, a fascist when Vietnamese migrants move into his city/neighborhood, and conservative when his daughter talks to foreigners(except western europeans).
Why the F would Vietnamese/or anyone move to Mongolia.
@@marlarki5280 in Ulaanbaatar there are plenty of Vietnamese car repairs most of them are migrants some stay illegally.
Because it is fundamentally a meaningless statement, signifying nothing.
I guess the Western European part was because they want their daughter to marry a European so she could get EU citizenship and move the whole extended family over?
Imagine having the right to vote for a beneficial political party only to not support it with taxes and then complain about it not having the funds to complete their promised projects, and then voting for another party and closing the loop, while failing to see that your actions helped make the situation as it is.
On the other hand, imagine having the right to be elected and abusing it for short term financial gain instead of helping the society that will ultimately help you gain more.
Both sides never seem to coexist because helping makes you vulnerable. So how do we break the cycle?
Abolish 4 year election cycles
Posadism
@@whiterussian3335 good idea but i'm guessing longer term will result to more riots and strikes, and shorter term will just have the same problems but magnified.
Communist seizure of the state
@@riakaraofficial violently suppress them
As far as the tax avoidance goes, Greece has refined it to a sort of perverse artform. There are countless jokes Greeks tell to each other about how someone they know, avoided paying taxes. I can tell a few jokes myself, about people I know, people I like, people I consider my friends who refuse to pay taxes while, at the same time, complain about how the taxes keep rising and rising.
Also, by the time 2060 rolls around and I can, hopefully, live in a country that is financially stable again I will be in my late sixties. Good times.
in brazil a similar percentage of gdp is untaxed and i'd like to say that in brazils case it is done mostly for survival, if every person did everything by the books they'd starve to death. The goverment is still one of the biggest in the world in terms of percentage of gdp despite this tax avoidance. So the government has enough money they just don't use it to do what is right.
So the problem here is that the government gained too much power over society, power it missused widely just like in venezuela or argentina or literally any other country that didn't get rich enough to compensate for it's state's crazy spending.
In 2060 maybe we will recover from the car accident but yet we will not learn how to drive.
History repeats itself and we Greeks pay taxes for loans we got since day one of our independence.
I'm 62 years old and I remember during 1990 I read in the newspaper that we had paid off a loan we took when Trikoupis was prime minister back in 1880.
So don't be very optimistic that in 40 years we will be free. Another accident will happen which will postpone The liberation for another two centuries.
And so on until we learn how to drive until we become citizens and left behind our low trust society mark.
All the above has been said by someone who even today gave a bribe to a public servant to finish faster a job.
I hope you young man will do better than me.
Learn how to drive please and don't follow my steps.
1. Would you tell some of the jokes?
2. Have you thought of not giving the money back as a country?
Same thing in Croatia. One of the economic universities in the country estimates that 1/3 of the GDP is based in the gray zone. Where taxes are somewhat payed. Receipts are not printed half of the time . Business are not registered. Half of the salary is taken in cash under the table as to not pay taxes. Everyone groans about taxes, while every business owner tries to avoid them. Since we have an over reliance on tourism these things happen quite easily in the service and hospitality sectors. Plus we have a culture of paying in cash so its easy to do.
@@antonikudlicki1100 1. I could, but not on the internet. I am not sure that no one relevant will see them and I won’t take the risk. I will refer you to a highly publicized case where business people in the city of Patras avoided taxation by claiming they donated money to monasteries.
2. As far as not paying the money, I don’t think the choice is in our hands. A few governments ago we tried something like that and it did not go well.
Its interesting how many people find similarities of this within their own countries. As an Indian the issues of clientelism and voting for ones clan is common in such a caste ridden society such as India and “urban peasantry” where India achieved urbanisation and democratisation before industrialisation, with the subsequent contrast to North West Europe against Greece.
I think this points rather than looking at this as a Greek or backward country phenomenon its about industrialised countries and the rest. Secondly the failure of political development. In North west Europe the two coincided. Labour unions and civil society attained broad rights when industrial wealth and institutions were generated. Poorer democratic countries are not able to industrialise because of how disruptive the process is and how easy opposed interests can stop it. Example are farm protests in India. China circumvented this with authoritarianism but are now facing consequences from this top down approach in terms of collapsing birth rate (Mao one child policy) and property crisis. The solution going forward is strong leadership focused on reform vis a vis dialogue.
The one objection I have to this video is the assumption by Kraut that Greece is abnormal in this regard by labeling it 'low trust'. Most societies and people throughout history have been low trust societies. Rather it is the case that our societies today like in Germany are abnormally 'high trust' societies.
This reminds me of the US with how we ignore our absurd debt as both parties try to act like everything is fine.
i am glad someone from an indian origin understands the core problem we face but the people here in india wont understand this because of lack of the political development consciousness about this.
Mao had been dead for 3 years when the one child policy started. It was deng Xiaoping that started it.
As a Greek I can comfirm that this is what's really going on in my country. Many people who talk about the crisis often fail to mention the surrounding problems that led to it but you really reached the core of the subject. Great video, keep up the good work Kraut!
I think that, rather than a silent agreement, both parties knew that things were about to go down, they just didn't knew when.
So, instead of solving the problem, both parties kept playing "economic hot potato", hoping and praying that, when the crisis exploded, it would do under the government of the other.
Amazing video as always, Kraut!
That and the fact that, at the end of the day, they weren't going to be the ones to suffer for their actions.
They still escaped paying the consequences of their actions. All the people in these parties should have been jailed
Possibly, if it's corrupt enough. But more likely it's a systemic trap. Imagine being the party that tires to change it. What are you gonna do, fire 20% of the population from their fake jobs, raise everyone's taxes by actually collecting them and so forth? You already know the answer: you ruin your party forever, and post-election everything gets reverted.
The story tends to be the same, always, of course. Whatever government gibs, it must take. It produces nothing, and needs its own skim. It can't tax the rich (they'll leave if they don't like the deal). So you pay for your own gibs, and then some.
The only tricky part is for government to devise the scheme so that you don't notice it. Rather obvious if you get $200 and get billed $250 for it. So we print, raise prices, and borrow instead.
Should any 'conservatives' wish to revert it: good luck. Even in the west, it's not much of a vote getter.
I would be surprised if the party leaders didn't discreetly transfer large amounts of cash into private foreign bank accounts
@@christianweibrecht6555 They did
Damn, we were one of the first nationalities that introduced and started paying officially taxes to the state. Even when later Rome conquered us, they found it relatively easy since we were used to paying anyway. The Turks' extremely bad form of administration remained so engraved in our society we still use their Turkish terms when we want to accuse someone for related crimes. We still grow up with old, extremely funny Greek 60s/70s movies that almost all of these make fun of exactly what you mention. The thing is, they kept reinforcing and solidifying the stereotypes even more. It's like a bubble, a microcosm of a vicious circle. Yet I'm totally convinced, we can change. The how is the big question. Getting hit hard by EU like it happened in 2009 is one way. But after that our pessimism grew to 1st place in EU. Vicious circle indeed.
Romania was under the same turkish contro. Why did it become wealthier than Greece? Bulgaria the same. Why is Israel about as wealthy as Germany, and why do they have no demographic problem (they have a fertility rate of more than 3)? Answer: because the secret ideological organization who governs every country wants it so. If they want it so, your country becomes wealthy. If they want it so, your country becomes poor. If they want it, they can do everything they want with your country.
@@tomorrowneverdies567 Go back into your conspiracy theory hole please.
lmao sure its turkish fault... thats why constantly civil wars and betrayals in byzantine right?
I realize it has been over a year since you posted this but I am really curious about what turkic terminology you guys when accusing someone if wrongdoings? İs it sth Ike ' he is being a turk ' to someone who is corrupt?
In Germany I think we express our Patriotism through being an extremely high trust society and through comparison with other countries. We go on holiday in low trust countries a lot and then come home thinking how superior our government and society structure is. It is quite different from the flag waving in other countries.
That’s what I’m thinking. The only times you see the German flag being flown en masse is during sporting events, such as the World Cup.
I can confirm that! Recently I went on holiday in Budapest. The Hungarian Currency is highly inflated in comparison to the euro. This somehow generated a weird sense of nationalism for me as a german. It is very weird
But equally cringe.
pretty smug with a birthrate like that
"Greek economy had strong structural fails, no stable industry paradigm in Greece, ill use of public funds, with investments feeding big state fed companies. Lastly there was no real aim, plan and ambition of Greeks to bring forth a strong economy, being very shortsighted.
" -Kratos
Now I get why he moved to Scandinavia. 😂
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha no way was I expecting whom that quot came from.
Amazing very well made well played.
"aphrodite scene from god of war" - Kyriakos Mitsotakis, prime minister of greece
My country also has no plan. Or if it has one it doesn't do a good job in comunicate it to it's people. So many acolites defending them, and yet I'm unable to get angry at some of them because they have become dependant of the govertment's help(the party).
"The cycle Ends here. We must be better than this." *snaps neck*
This was an extremely well-researched video that cut to the (rotten) core of the issue. I have watched a lot of content trying to understand the Greek crisis but most of it tried to explain it through either stock market mechanics, how the EU/Euro was structured or simply trying to paint one party as the bad one (lazy Greeks, greedy bankers, austerity-obsessed Germans etc). This is the first time I saw someone examining the crisis as a product of deeply rooted cultural biases that gave rise to political problems.
It's the question of why vs how.
Yeah kraut seems great at that
If you are employed but do no work, you ARE a lazy, immoral person!
@@carolusrex5305 But what if your employer does not REQUIRE you to work. I'd say that the bigger problem were the people who EMPLOYED them and gave them this opportunity than those who took it. If someone offers me 500€ for free each month, no questions asked and I have to do nothing, what rule am I breaking. It is the one who offered me this contract that is breaking the law and defrauding the state.
That is also part of the answer. Is always good looking a problem throught a diferent perspective. It may hold the answers that can explain some questions another perspective finds and is unable to answer. Is hard, but worth it.
Ayo, your regular Greek viewer here, loved the video. FINALLY someone who goes more in depth than the surface level analysis you yourself point out others make in this video.
A few things to add that i happen to know since I've been living in this country and got a good memory of all this going down.
Greeks were well aware of the corruption pre-2008, it'd be hard to find anyone living in a big city or a small town that doesn't know anybody who at some point had benefited by the two party system of corruption. Usually every sizeable family(including cousins) would have some phone numbers leading to some government official that could hook you up with the corruption services depending on who you knew. For example my second cousin's grandpa got life-saving surgery in the 90s by being put on priority thanks to such a connection. Another service they often provide is -due to our mandatory military service- giving positions in the air-force unit which is essentially just desk job stuff. Getting a comfy position in the public sector has been one of those divisive things throughout our history, my father was once given the opportunity and turned it down because of how it is looked down upon, he only refers to this nowadays however to say how much he regrets turning it down knowing the hell that is running your own business throughout the economic crisis.
It was generally understood that those who ever spoke in favor of any political figure had personal interests, that very act was seen as slimy by the broader Greek populace that lacked those connections, the smaller parties only ever existed to roast the two-party establishment but often bailed when it came to doing things probably because they too knew how deep the damage was done.
I honestly don't know if Greece can still be saved. One thing i keep hearing from people who've made recommendations in various sectors for changes with mathematically provable positive monetary results is that they've gotten those recommendations shot down with no additional comment. It is a recurring sentiment of Greeks with the means and will to help their country not even being able to.
More often than not you hear about successful Greek entrepreneurs that were forced to leave the country because of the severe bottlenecks our laws throw at them and i would be inclined to believe this was just a tax evasion thing however one thing i know for sure is that because Greece has this tax evasion culture, it seems the government has made mathematically illogical tax laws to compensate. While i have only crunched the numbers in some sectors i can confirm that indeed, the numbers do NOT make any sense, the only explanation is that they're compensating on the assumption that everyone is tax evading.
Hopefully by the end of this year i will have figured out a way to make money online because as usual some new law for restricting certain chemicals in industry threatens to shut down my father's business.
rel
But it is also true that there was a denial and ignorance that the state was broken. I was raised during the 90s in Germany. My parents and I travelled during the summer holidays to Greece and I remember how fucked the roads were. You had to drive over mountain passes to get somewhere. Since Greece has a lot of mountains it was a torture for me as a 5 to 10 year old, not making a lot of progress on the roads.
Then in 2004 (I was 16) the state build new highways, tunnels, railways, hosted the olympic games, build a new metro in Athens, new stadiums, spended a record budget on surveillance technology, they build a record length bridge to the Peleponisian Island. They even modernized the hellenic army. I asked my parents: "How on Earth is this possible? They had for decades no money for nothing, and now they are building all this fancy new stuff?".
My parents answered: "Its because of the EU."
In 2010 I knew that my parents had no clue, so as most other adult Greeks.
I'm Danish and my Greek friend moved in with me 6 months ago. She's quite upset that she has to pay taxes, rather than it being optional, and that she can't just pay doctors to treat her sooner than other patients. 😂
I wholeheartedly agree with her. It is the biggest problems with the nordic societies. But don't listen to me, I'm just a crazy corporate neoliberal.
Sound like a funtioning state to me
@@swedishancap3672 Yes. Yes you are
@@swedishancap3672 me hiring a pmc to beat you up because you have dumb opinions but it’s fine because it’s my money.
@@Dap1ssmonk your comparison is unfair because your example requires violating the NAP
Greek here. Living and working in Greece for 40 years, as a private agent in Customs clearance and financial representations, 61 y.o.
I approve and recommend the video analysis with my heart, both hands, feet and signature. 😉
As someone having daily businesses with customs, I remember the first day the ministry of finance supplied the customs offices with computers to modernize procedures from papers to digital convertion, back in 2001. The machines stayed covered inside their plastic protection covers, untouched by the employees, for 8 years. In 2007 they throw them away as they were too old to run the new operating systems. As for today (February 2022), the servers supporting the Customs data bases, located in the basements of the building of the ministry of finance, in Athens, are offline daily from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. which makes all the customs declarants like myself to start our business day at 5:00 a.m. in the morning before the system goes offline.
Oh yes. We are a low trust society 😂
P.S. I don't mention anything about "oiling the machines", as these could jeopardize my license. HA !
I don't know whether to laugh or cry in pain at your experiences with absurd beauracracy!
I will never complain about german beaurocracy again. Holy moly
The god of beaurocracy definitely residences on Olymp, whoever that might be
Why are the servers offline during office hours? Are they afraid someone will tamper with them or something?
@@FranciscoGarcia-jp1hp nope. The servers should run 24/7
There is only a technical problem.
Now days many government sites give access to many digital services.
From getting an appointment for vaccination, to a certificate for military service, to social security benefits etc.
Many many of them.
Citizens in Greece don't need to create different accounts to access these services. They use the credentials they already have to access taxation, to enter all different government services.
But the servers were bought 10 ago, when not all this amount of data transfer existed. They were commissioned only to serve citizens for taxation. And now they have to deal with 1000% more traffic.
So after 10 a.m. when more citizens start to do all kind of different jobs from their homes, the Taxation and Custom's Servers turn red, explode, get a nuclear attack, an asteroid hits them and they go:
BAAABBOOUUUUUMMMMM !
And in Greek bureaucracy its difficult to order white A4 paper for the printers.
Image the director of the servers to ask money for newer most powerful machines.
They will laugh at him and tell him: Don't worry. Day has 24 hours. Citizens are in their homes. They can do their business off rush hours. Who cares.
Low trust societies. Remember ?
They don't care about us and we don't care about them.
As a Greek, first of all I wish to congratulate you for being completely objective. Both governing parties aided and abated this system and PASOK's position has simply been replaced by SYRIZA, however much they like to portray themselves otherwise. The worst part is that there is very little impetus for change.
Also a very interesting example of the bloated public sector is that when Troika came over to fix our shit up, they realized that the Government didn't know how many Public Corporations, entities that are usually founded to provide various services, the Government owned and operated. We didn't know of course but we still funded them all through the budget. When the list was made, begrudgingly might I add, it was discovered that the Public Corporation responsible for the draining of Lake Copais, a project that was completed the same year it began, in 1957 (which is a rarity in and of itself as timetables go round these parts) but the Corporation remained in operation with a full-staff of thirty people which included a driver for the CEO. Everybody involved was of course surprised and as a local Greek saying goes "Fell from the Clouds"
Its ironic how back in the 80's the two party system hired too many, but right now people are getting fired
Daily reminder that there's a council for making the first nuclear power plant in Poland and it was created ~10 years ago . There's still no declared ground were the construction could start, but people are getting payed
@@antonikudlicki1100 Proof that there is truly a European common culture, just not the one we would like 😆
I think you also get a problem of toxic positivity. You want to be an attractive partner and being negative does not make you an attractive partner. So you get a situation where bringing up negative stuff is looked at with suspicion and dismissal rather than taken seriously and so neither party wants to lose power by being negative.
The government knew what it was funding. They were lying in preparation for the bailouts and the adjustment programs.
I used to think that the causes of the Greek debt crisis and my country's banking crisis had been caused by the same factors but that Iceland found a way out of the crisis that Greece was unable to follow. However after watching this video I find it quite clear that the both of these crises had very different backstories and thus had very different long term effects.
Unwilling, not unable. Well, unless you count outside and inside pressure to the government not to follow Iceland's example as "unable".
This low trust society thing is so very true here in Brazil. And the no trusting each other thing goes as far as, to when I visited abroad, I cringed and actively fled from other brazilians, and even tried to hide the fact that I was one. And here, it's simply a given that nothing works as it's supposed to. Even as a public teacher, everyone involved, even trying their best, already assumes the system and everyone in it will only make life harder and does not care anything about the purpose of the institution, it's a hellish entropic feeling. And hell, the similarities between Greece and Brazil in many ways presented above are staggering, it feels it only didn't collapsed in a more spectacular way because of the sheer size of the economy and the country yet.
Same with America but in a wierd sense.
People trust each other to a Naiive extent, but distrust the government to a goofy extent.
Its mostly because of Vietnam and Iraq that Americans just distrust everyone.
That doesn't describe all Americans. That doesn't describe most Americans, some maybe.
7:30 while it is true that 1821 had a chance of being lost without external support, I wouldn't say the support was humanitarian. Rather, it was that the big European Powers wanted to somehow keep the balance of power in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, and a crumbling Ottoman Empire was in none of their interests. Russia joined the war for its own benefits, the British also gained substantial control over the Eastern Mediterranean and the French were trying to regain their lost prestige.
Also, I wouldn't say Greece would never have become independent. Greece would simply become independent a bit later, in 1878 with the rest of the Balkan countries.
What happened in 1878 wouldn’t have happened without a precedent of the 3 European imperialists carving out new invented Balkan states.
This is a simplistic vew, at least. Greeks didn't have any help in 1821. It was the money of Greek community that was living across Europe, in Romania, Austria, Italy, Odessa and Amsterdam that helped the Greeks with equipment. A secret planned organization (Filiki Eteria), that under the noise of European powers with many freemasons, step by step managed to organize the whole revolution thousands of miles away form the place it happned. In fact the revolution happened 6 years later after the congress of Vienna and after the Metternich system was established, when the four great powers agreed to drown any revolution that would happen in Europe. It was the acomolisments of Greeks that lead the European empires mainly the British and French, to adopt to the new world order, the new reality and saw the new Greek state as a geopolitical chance. Of course Greeks took advantage of it as well, before that, the maintenance of ottoman empire was something that all parts wanted since ottoman empire with the tanzimat, had became a controlled economically empire by british and other powers.
This is also proved by plenty of evidences:
1)It was the British ambassador in Morea (Peloponnese) that sniched the revolution that was about to happen, to Turks.
2) On the congress of Laibach 1821, just after the revolution, Austrian empire and Russia were about to intervene with military help in order to drown the Greek revolution. The one who gave his life and made everything in possible to stop this, was the foreign minister of Russia Kapodistrias, a Greek in origin, that risked his position and after that became the first prime Minister of Greece. However, still both empires officially condemned the revolution on the final resolution.
3) Even at the battle of Navarino that happened 6 years later(!), Austrian empire helped ottomans with 8 fleets.
4) Again on the battle of Navarino, both Egyptian and French fleets were full of Greek sailors and greek officials. On the Egyptian were the Greeks that were sold as slaves on the trade slave in Macedonia, as an act of revenge for the successful revolution in Morea.
The Greeks revolution is considered the first succesfull in Europe that lead in forming the first and oldest nation-state as we know it today in europe and second in the world after USA. Was the reason that ottoman empire was named after that the "sickest man of Europe" and also what lead to the crush of the empire. Inspiring all the other ethnicites of ottoman empire and lead to the rise of nationalism in Europe.
Russia joined to take Constantinople, France and UK joined because they didn't want Russia to take Constantinople or control of Balkan, nationalists joined because they believed in nationhood for every nation, Christians joined to "stick it to them muslims"
@@BeaverChainsaw Greeks fought for freedom. That's all it matters. The first succesfull revolution against an empire that was starting near Vienna and ended in girbaltar. The turks will never forget that, that's why the hate, it was the Greeks that after their succesful revolution, ottoman empire was named "the sick man of europe". And almost were about to lose Asia minor in 1922 if it was not for soviets and the million rubles they gave.
@@thesoundinyourhead1782 true, I was never denying that or the bravery of Greek nationalists
As a Pole, this hits home to a dangerous degree. I believe a very serious problem we're currently having in Poland and one we don't want to notice is an upcoming pension system crisis as our state has no money reserves and the population of working age people is decreasing even despite mass Ukrainian and Belarusian immigration. The dominant factor of winning the election in 20 years will be the amount of cash a would - be government can take from the working people and give to the elderly (it already is to some degree now). The higher our taxes, the bigger our emigration of working age people, the lower budget income, the bigger our taxes and so on. Some young people (but only some!) are already aware we will either have no pensions or we'll live in a bankrupt state. That would make for an interesting video topic, wouldn't it?
PiS is going to tank my home country into a 3rd World nation at this rate, proving again that everything really was better under Soviet Control...
As a fellow Pole, I biasedly second this motion.
Hell as a American, what happening these past 12 years is sound similar to Greece especially the low trust.
@@aturchomicz821 Not PiS, but literally any party capable of wining elections in our post communist country
Same thing happening in Germany. Pension for non public jobs are extremely low. The coming and even present generations will have to work up until age 67, tendencies go to 70, until eligible for pension, which is currently 48% of your average income. In 2050 it will only be around 43%. And it is getting taxed. Yes your low af 1000-1200€ average pension is getting taxed. So you end up with even less. Average pension for a 2020 pensioner who has worked 45 years is 900€. Meanwhile public sector pension is more than twice as high at about 3000€. Germany is heading head first into a pension crisis because you either are lucky and get a public sector job or a super high paying privat job. Lower and middle class people are getting fcked. Even worse, Germanys pension system is a PayGo System, meaning the 18,8% pension "tax" from your salary goes directly to fund the current pensioners, while returning zero interest rate for you. Next generation will have to fund your pension as you have for the previous one. Spiraling downwards with less and less tax paying individuals per generations who individually have to pay more and more to keep the system alive. Best thing for young people is to leave the country before even paying 1 Cent into the state pension system, because you will never see your money back and are better of investing it yourself.
this is one of the best takes of the greek debt crisis, everyone else on utube just talks about financial data and completely ignore the fact that greek societys structure is mostly to blame for the situation. As a greek living in greece i think you have made a very good video about the matter, althought there might be a lot more to this, but you have showed the core factors of the societal crisis in the country.Good job.
Low trust society explains it very concisely. I grew up in Greece but moved abroad for my BA studies to the Netherlands 8 years ago, so I feel that I was broadly socialized as an adult here instead of back home. I've never done my taxes in Greece, for example, or had to deal with Greek bureaucracy much. This is extremely true, and it is something I get painfully reminded of whenever I go back home. My friends and family often comment on my naivety at how I assume a system in place should be taken at face value that it works.
At the same time, the systems are built in such a way that if you do go by all the rules as someone running a small business or while being a low level employee, that means you won't be able to survive. If you complain about wages not being properly counted, you'll just get fired and replaced. If you keep a 100% transparent tax report, you won't have much of a yearly profit left over. Right now in the Netherlands in my city although gas has gone up in price, you can get a subsidy from the government to supplement your expenses depending on your income, and the government does help the costs from getting too astronomical (well... could be better). In Greece the gas bills (and electricity bills, since in Greece electricity is made by using gas) are astronomical (think as much as one's rent or more), while most people have a salary below 1k euros. There is NO help from the government to mitigate these costs, despite how they are unlivable. Most of my friends in their late 20s with a full time job can't even afford to leave their parents' home. Basically, people are used to the idea that the government is unreliable, corrupt, and everyone should look out for themselves. It's sad.
On one hand I am glad that I see some of the younger generations being more optimistic, but on the other there has been a palpable rise in fascism and xenophobia. Also as many others have noted (and as my own case is) many young people with prospects end up moving abroad. I'd love to go back to my country but in my sector there is no way I'd make a livable wage. It sucks.
Pretty much all that you say about the Greek state and society can be said about the Albanian state and society. The differences are that Albania gained independence from the ottomans about a century later than Greece, had a locally imposed semi feudal monarchy in the interwar period that was also a vassal to fascist Italy, went through fascist and Nazi occupations that were not extremely brutal like that of Greece, and then had a 46 year old brutal stalinist dictatorship and in the past 30 years has had a clientelist-kleptocratic-criminal system with two main parties, both descendants of the ruling communist party of the dictatorship being the main architects and overseers of the system. Another major difference with Greece is that Albania is obviously not an EU and Eurozone member and cannot borrow like Greece did and relies more on money laundering of drug and other criminal enterprise money. You should do a video about Albania either way. :)
Bulgarian here, trust me, my man, I think all of us, here, at the god forsaken Balkans, seem to be like that.. worst of all, we seem to have normalised it to a point of seeing it as a part of our culture instead of doing something about it..
also I doubt Kraut's gonna make a video about either of our countries since even though there are respectable differences, the similarities are too many to justify such an endeavor.
It must be good to live free of EU's bullshit...
Once the European Parliament passes fitfor55, you'll see impoverished Czechs, Slovaks and Poles, looking out for jobs and decent living
@@nikoladoctorov553 here in Croatia is a similar situation. There are two main parties. New parties are finally starting to grow but very slowly. Corruption scandals have happened so many times the people are numb to it. Recently there were two. A mayor (which is a part of the ruling party) using EU funds to approve and fund a wind farm that favored her friends/family construction company. And the second one being the former minister for drawing EU funds, using those same funds to "upgrade" the computer systems, but actually just stealing the money. Both were a part of the ruling party, and the ruling party didn't take a hit in the pols. The same party that had thier PRIME MINISTER ten years ago, convicted for corruption, taking bribes and even war profiteering back in the 90s.
@@petarspajic7648 damn, out of all the Balkan countries, at least you and Slovenia should have been better.. sorry to hear that...
From a Spanish, the feeling is that in southern Europe we're all low trust societies. We all have the same problems
Greek here. I was born in the early two thousands and i can't say i remember much before the financial crisis struck. But i do remember what happened after it did. The absolute chaos, people losing their jobs, unemployment skyrocketing, businesses shutting down, the riots, the half constructed buildings that litter the country to this day, to politicians blaming everyone but themselves. The worst part was that we were actually recovering up until COVID struck. I often times discuss this with friends and almost every one that is pursuing higher education is willing to leave Greece for a better future, as am I. It pains me to even think that i might leave my home behind, but I am not willing nor want my children to pay the price of the near nearsightedness and corruption of the past generations. That being said, I do still hold hope that one day Greece will finally recover and perhaps even learn and correct the mistakes of the past. We have faced and overcome hardships before after all.
This is very bad, I feel you. It is happening in Brazil and Turkey too, many people leaving the country, no one left to rebuild it and I can't blame them
Kraut called this brain drain in his video "India & Pakistan - A continuing Story" and even showing a picture of greeks leaving to go to Germany. I totally understand this. But I also hope a lot of you find the heart to stay there and help to rebuild Greece.
Πόνος.
-Leaves Greece with his highly sought after Qualifications
-Wants the country to get better when hes fleeing its economy where his Labor would be appreciated more then in a Developed country.
Amazing Hypocrisy right here, nice job👍🏻
@@aturchomicz821 There's a significant difference between 'needed' and 'appreciated'.
There's a great video dealing with similar information on the same topic called "How Independence Indebted Greece" by CaspianReport. The most interesting thing in that video to me was how he described the scheming in the London stock exchange related to the Greek independence war, I don't remember all the details but there was extremely volatile trading going on with shares of interest payments. The end result of the independence war was that Greece was massively indebted monetarily to the UK and the business elite of London were all very invested in a stable Greece that could pay back their interest.
Italian speaking: this video is incredible. You managed to summerize in 25 minutes the roots of many different nations' problems, including mine. I could talk for hours about our situation, but I think that the final quote from your greek friend says everything one needs to understand, even if it doesn't refer to Italy specifically. I would add that our situation is a bit more complex, as that kind of mindset is way more widespread in the South than in the North (which is still productive enough to keep the whole ship afloat, at least from a financial standpoint), but unfortunately that certainly won't be enough to begin pushing the country away from its now 30 year old stagnation. It's really funny that in this kind of societies, everybody usually agrees that their country and culture suck (Italians have countless jokes on how everything we do is stupid, inefficient, corrupt and how we are always trying to stab each other in the back, and I'm sure that Spaniards and Greeks will tell very similar ones), but the majority of them end up complying with and embracing those same problems they hate. It's a vicious cycle, it's always "other people's" fault. We are champions in playing the victim and as such we never feel obliged to follow the rules: the assumption that a competition, whichever it may be, could be fair never even crosses our minds. We "know" that we'll be the victims of somebody else's tricks, so we'd better start playing dirty before them. At the end of the day, we never feel responsible for the shitshow we cause, because like children we point at each other saying "it was him who caused this, I just did the same thing". This is also why our politics often searches for the strong man who will keep everybody (and if possible purge that other faction that I hate) in check. It's the same reason why we are famous for changing sides in every war, and for why, unlike the germans, we've never really gone through the collective process of admitting the atrocities our nation committed in its history. We simply never really prepared and fought for democracy. Our future is bleak.
Kraut: Shows Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain about the 2008 crisis
Meanwhile Portugal: You won't catch me alive Kraut!!!!
Portugal: *looks around nervously*
as a spaniard i think the comparisons with greece are spot on, and curiously it does explain why the family culture in the mediterranean is so much stronger than in the rest of europe and in the anglosphere.
Pero como "europeo" el autor del vídeo olvida que geopolíticamente los anglosajones persiguen subordinar económicamente a sus vecinos del sur.
Lo que digo es que lo único que han hecho es usar nuestras debilidades para tenernos sometidos económicamente. Piensa, además, que hasta los polacos sufren la misma fuga de cerebros que nosotros padecemos y, que todos sabemos a qué países se van.
@@CaesarMiguel Que ganan los anglosajones de subordinar paises mediterráneos? Aceite de olivo?
@@CaesarMiguel "anglosajones persiguen subordinar económicamente a sus vecinos del sur. " Tu hables de EEUU o de que país?
But you reformed they did not
rofl @@ling636
Kraut, concerning the Nazi occupation, you should have stated the horrible role of Italians. I say this as an Italian myself. I suppose this was for brevity and because some idiot could have accused you of deflecting because you are Austrian, but what happened there is something Italians should be reminded of. I think there are greeks I talked with that have a better opinion of Turks than of Italians.
Also, I am happy you talked about fascist corruption. The world, the west included, is currently full of idiots that think authoritarianism is an answer to corruption while is instead a main cause.
I worry especially for the fascist tendencies on the right in both the USA and UK. Both seem on a path towards full blown kleptocracy, with the balance of power stacked against anyone who would want to do something against it.
Almost no Greek person has any sort of dislike towards Italy/Italians. Almost all Greeks actually love Italians and Italians are regarded as the same people.
Regarding World War 2: The general consensus in Greece (as is the truth) that Italians did not want the war but were drawn into it by their lunatic fascist dictator. This can be seen in multiple factors: The Italians lost because they were unmotivated fighting against a people they considered brothers; A lot of Italians helped Greeks escape Nazis and vice versa: when Nazis turned against Italians, a lot of Greeks hid Italians in their basements to save them from getting killed.
So no, almost no one in Greece dislikes Italians, I really don't know why someone told you that.
@@micha0585 It happened with several colleagues in several occasions in the years. They were still friendly but sounded bitter because italians didn't realize 100% the evil inflicted.
@@Kaiyanwang82 Then you can be assured they were really weird people.
@@micha0585 One guy definitively is - in love with Russia, extremist, anti-vaxx and so on. The others.... as an example were 2 academics and they were very vanilla people. Oh well.
As a Greek I must admit that I am amazed by the thoroughness of you analysis. Great job
As A Thai person form Thailand, Greek clientelism sound VERY familiar, especially in the rural area. Public sector in here Thailand is quite large like in pre-2008 Greece, although we didn’t have a lot of political appointee like in Greece, because our bureaucracy tends to act like a “state within a state” but “Connection” did help a lot for advancement in government jobs.
I think most of the developing countries tends to have similar “Low trust society” problem with a different degree, depends on its societal and historical context .Greece maybe a extreme examples, but good cautionary tales.
I also like Kraut’s explanation that he did not blame the problem on single person, party or particular ideology. He said that Nazi, Greek Monarchy, Greek Junta, ND and PASOK Both Left and Right side of the political spectrum, contributed to the problem.
The thing is, we are not "developing" country. The country is fully developed. And we could have escaped from this mentality long ago. We didn't. Go figure.
Greek just the case where shit hit the fan too hard. I feel you bro, that type of clientelism, deeply corruption, heavily dependent connection is widely practiced in South East Asia. It isn't unique to Greek or any regions, of course each place have difference cause, however all of them have very much the same symptoms.
from VN with love
Agreed.
@El Dimos Karam Uruguay is a better example
I think low trust societies will expand. As corporations get ever more greedy and exploitative and scamming and lying become ever easier combined with the massive overinformation of the internet it becomes increasingly hard to trust anyone or anything.
You also have the decline of national values and the loneliness of many has caused them to look towards their immediate family or a small group of physical friends.
7:36 Actually after the much respected Greek leader Ioannis Kapodistrias was assassinated, the Greeks struggled to find a new leader that would have the same international recognition. They asked many from European royalty but most declined. This is how it came to Otto. He wasn't appointed.
I’m fairly sure the monarchy was installed by the great powers without the consent of the Greek people. See the London conference of 1832
Let's not forget that the greek people were a mixed bag of voices and opinions.
@@oreoresti6265 Except the people supported Otto taking the throne
Greek here, living in Greece. What is even more depressing is that most of the clientelism and corrupt shadow institutions still exist. Not only that, but when the majority brought a government to power that did everything they could to stop this, most of the people just ended up despising change. Most people still want to go back to how pre-2008 Greece was. The era even has a name: "The era of the fat cows". And guess what happened in 2019. They brough back ND to power, a government that simply continues to destroy, backed by the clientelism and nationalistic, even fascistic, elements. Finally, the explanation about greeks in 22:57 is SPOT-ON!
SYRIZA DID EVERYTHING THEY COULD TO STOP THIS 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
"Seize the means of corruption" now that's a slogan XD
kraut at 25:00 the audio and visuals mess up, you may want to fix this
yeah the closing point is skipped and that is sad
Was about to say the same thing
I'm mildly confused why I had to scroll this far to find anyone else mentioning this. Was almost creepy, not gonna lie.
I honestly thought this was done on purpose. Maybe like a possible ARG or subplot. I had to scroll until I saw that somebody else noticed it
I thought you hated his guts.
now you watch his videos?
I'm sorry, but the "seize the means of corruption" joke was so funny I had to pause and make a comment. We really are our own worst enemies.
The public broadcasting company radio station that is 300 yards from my house employed 7 gardeners. Its rather small area that woud require the attention of a gardener was actually cleared by the sheep that grazed there.
One thing I love about your videos is that I can either watch- or listen to them. The art complements the subject in a great way and I commend that but sometimes I just have something else for my eyeballs to be doing.
This tax thing applies to india too, indians used to evade taxes during colonial era, but this tradition became a common social norm that continues till day, where government is always looked as autocratic thieves
Yes I was thinking the same! Also a lot of parallels between India and Greece in the section between 9:30 - 11:15.
@@glukog In my city, it does happen. But I don't think Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai have such cases.
However, the next generation of those people or one who come to study starts to behave different. Be it political or anything. And starts to mix.
@@glukog That section eerily referes to the caste-based votebank politics but I must mention that this situation didn't exist before the Mandal Commission fiasco. And currently the BJP has more-or-less successfully undermined this caste-based votebank by uniting the castes into a unified Hindu identity in perpetual conflict with Muslims.
The autocratic thieves part isn't wrong either-
Not really, it's simply most of the population don't earn enough to be included in taxable income brackets at least in direct income taxes. While the entire country pays taxes through indirect taxes like Gst, Vat, cess, etc. But yea still corruption runs deep here.
23:40 THANK you, you don't know how many people I've met that actually think this. To me it really seems like the argument "it's not our fault if the older generation did it" applies to everyone except us Greeks
I may be generalizing but it feels like it's just because Greeks got the misfortune of owing actual debt and money instead of, I dunno, actual human lives who were lost to death or misery? Some people really seem to refuse to consider those even worth apologies even. This world really is lovely, isn't it. Hope Greece manages to recover from this and build anew.
Also your debt collectors have the biggest muscle around to back them up, so....
@ger du debt is just a number mind you
I can understand the position you have as a individual greek. However its not a burden just on your end as a dutchman our government has borrowed a large amount of capital for the bailout program. We as in the dutch people that i know and talk to expect from the start that it will never be payed back. So i as a person on the other side of the continent will have to work to pay off a debt created by a generation of people in another country. Please note dont have any dislike or hatered towards the greek people. But this is currently the situation and the best thing you can do is to make your government a proper working institution. I dont have the ansvers for this..... its just a giand mess.
even italian millenials and zoomers have to blame boomers for italy's state. You're not alone, dear ethnic cousin.
@ger du And when will Germany pay war reparations?
I’ve been looking for this video for so long! Thanks for such a balanced and accurate reconstruction
Honestly the xppen sponsorship feels so genuine. Its really the only brand with what feels like good drivers and everything on the same level as wacom without being literally monopoly-priced
It is a very interesting subject. I would have something to ask you about your work: long time ago, in one of your first video, you treated the fall of democracy in Imperial Japan stopping by saying it was the first video of a serie, the following you never did. Do you consider to continue it one day (I would love to personnaly)? This period is so vaguely and nearly not covered...
Always wanted to see a response to this question
He said that he wanted to re work the series in one of his posts on youtube i think
@@ViktorBezK It's a complicated issue, so that makes sense
Extra Credit also did a series on it but didn't really deep dive into the fundamental causes for the shift like Kraut does.
Kraut I'm greek and i would like to have your permusion to present this to a certain meeting. Also i would love to say that this sadly exposes the truth of the todays greek state and government.
He has been saying many times that you can freely use the videos, even translate them, but also make sure to share them so more people can find them
The whole video concludes not paying taxes is the reason of Greek financial dept, collapse etc. Which is wrong of course.
Does this video mentioned any economist, any role of Banks, the IMF, Goldman Sachs, first loans early 19th century, national assets sold in Germany and other countries etc?
Oh, just a populist opinion.. Great.
Like the opinion of this "Greek friend" who admitted Greeks are horrible individually and as a nation, this video portrays Greeks as that image people like the creator tried to create at the beginning of the crisis. Remember?
Think:
A partially not paid taxes by a small country does make a dept of 400B in few decades?
@@yannisliosis8108 Wasnt Goldman Sachs originally responcible for the economic recession of 2008 iirc?
@@outerspace7391 Hi. Copy paste for you:
"The crisis was exacerbated years ago by a deal with Goldman Sachs, engineered by Goldman’s current CEO, Lloyd Blankfein. Blankfein and his Goldman team helped Greece hide the true extent of its debt, and in the process almost doubled it. And just as with the American subprime crisis, and the current plight of many American cities, Wall Street’s predatory lending played an important although little-recognized role.
In 2001, Greece was looking for ways to disguise its mounting financial troubles. The Maastricht Treaty required all eurozone member states to show improvement in their public finances, but Greece was heading in the wrong direction. Then Goldman Sachs came to the rescue, arranging a secret loan of 2.8 billion euros for Greece, disguised as an off-the-books “cross-currency swap”-a complicated transaction in which Greece’s foreign-currency debt was converted into a domestic-currency obligation using a fictitious market exchange rate."
But that biased vidéo blames the Greek people.. Disappointed
@@yannisliosis8108 That sounds like it exacerbated the issue rather than the underlying cause. The fact that such a large part of the economy was under the table and that corruption was rampant meant that a crisis was bound to happen eventually without predatory lending, it just would have happened sooner with less debt. I also don't think that the video really spoke poorly of the greeks really. The general point was that historical events lead to a system that was unsustainable not that the greeks deserved it or something.
This is by far the most accurate and comprehensive video on the subject I have come across. This should be shown in schools, and not just here in Greece. Thank you
Really good video with some bits that struck a little close to home here in Bermuda. Great job as always Kraut & co!
It's interesting that, however much we in the Anglosphere criticise and complain about our governments and politicians, we still take for granted that they reliably provide services and enforce laws and that everyone, in turn, pays their taxes and abides by those laws. We may not have the same degree of "Obrigkeitsgläubigkeit" that you have in Germany, but that trust still underpins everything in our society. Without it it we would cease to function.
The problem is that in recent years, it seems that societal trust is being eroded thanks to political polarization, and the center is becoming irrelevant in the political field, as the political extremists capture money, attention, and votes.
*Laughs in American cities, then proceeds to cry.*
I think we Germans might be one of the most high trust societies in the world
@@souvikrc4499 If you're talking about the USA in this case you can be alot more relaxed. Yes at the federal level their is alot of mistrust in the government this in part stifles the feds from being able to enact truly widesweeping reforms. But if you actually look at state level and local level the USA is chugging along just fine. We dont trust the feds but trust for local government is still very high which allows the entire country to function as the states are capable of picking up the slack from what the feds can't achieve.
Of course because your government, banks, media, and other importan people runing important institutions do not f your economy/country every 5 years (at least economy-wise). Whereas in countries like Greece or south american countries they do.
"We live in a society."
-Kraut, 2022
Gamer Kraut
Incel Kraut
Excellent as always! With your new voice modulation style it is much more pleasent to listen
I usually always skip ads but yours was so sincere I actually wanted to get one even though I've never drawn in my life
Watching this I can't help but wonder how Ireland got out of the similar mess it was facing before. Would love to see a video about how Ireland so spectacularly turned things around
That is actually a very good question.
Tax evasion
When we crashed we still always had big multinationals and their taxes as a source of income, which at least kept the lights on. The rest of the growth in ireland is smoke and mirrors tho.
""I can't help but wonder how Ireland got out of the similar mess "" - because its governments and all important people inside and outside of Ireland wanted to.
I think Ireland is an interesting case study in hegemonic neoliberalism driving post-colonial countries to leapfrog over a production economy directly into a finance/service economy. In the current global system, this is the best (often only) way to accrue the capital necessary to improve economic mobility, social services, and infrastructure. Whether or not this is successful depends largely on outside investment. Some nations like Singapore are uniquely positioned for success due to integral geographic positioning, crucial national resources, or a strong relationship with regional economies.
I don’t think high/low trust is as important as the country’s initial quality of infrastructure, and a well-established elite which already had important relationships with investors. Without this, there isn’t much incentive to invest outside of of what’s necessary for resource extraction, which is why I think Ireland fares much better than tons of places like Jamaica, Greece, and the Ivory Coast.
The pitfall is that this leaves a country reliant on highly specialized industries that concentrate wealth and provide limited employment, leaving them extremely vulnerable to economic shock.
Domestic policy is extremely important, and plenty of countries fail due to internal reasons, but “low trust” societies like Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Taiwan, and the Bahamas thrive despite this. I think it’s more about where powerful state actors and the rich believe they can make the most money.
Very fun video to watch, gotta love the different art styles in there as always! The Latinamerica part was also very well written, congratulations.
This was a fantastic video, and suggests a high-quality channel, which I will certainly be checking out in future!
The one guy who has really interesting promotions. Thanks Kraut, love your videos
That's literally the same situation as my country.(Albania). We think we are different but actually we are so similar
The Ottomans may have left but they have a lingering presence, a mark of the beast if you will.
@@nikolamitrovic3841 Totally agreed with you my friend. I think catholics are to blame a bit too. The fall of Constantinople in 1204 made Byzantium weak and later they were not in a position to stop ottoman invasions. If Constantinople was not attacked in 1204, Ottomans would never conquer Balkan and we would be much developed and more united with each other today.
Οο ελπίδες μας καηκανε καππτε στην αλεξανδρεια
Τωρα δουλευουμε με συμβαση οκταμηνα
@@Nondas8552 yea
Fun fact : its the strong society and strong relations among the clans that greeks managed to defeat germans and its the same situation that became a pain in kind of autocratic corrupt democracy that greek is
Thank you Kraut. I'm a German American from upstate NY, living in Seattle. I'm looking for entrance into the eastern Orthodox church, so far it's been a rather frustrating process. This video Helps Shine some Light on the culture. Thank you again.
If you are interested on this topic, there is the documentary Laboratory Greece. A must watch.
Damn, it’s interesting how these phenomenons that Kraut is covering lately are widespread in many countries, here in Argentina we have many of the same problems that were discussed in the video, especially regarding tax evasion, trust, political clientism and corruption, I hope the best to our Greek brethren out there, your country is beautiful, I hope it recovers soon!
Does argentina have a prosperous future?
As a Greek, I wish to return the kind words. Best of luck to you all!
@@MyNameIsJeffrie It all depends on the government, under the current leadership and ideology, we are pretty much screwed, our "president" keeps blundering left and right, it's actually quite hilarious and sad at the same time
@@MyNameIsJeffrie haha no! Argentinian government is incompetent and jnflation is so consistently high, people use US dollars to protect their assets.
@@ramicane1671 Do you think latin america will ever become a prosperous place?
If you are interested in learning more about the Eurozone crisis, I would highly recommend Adam Tooze's "Crashed". It does an excellent job explaining lead-up and responses to the 2008 and 2010 crises. He does not spend much time describing the origin of Greece's debt and instead focuses on why France and Germany acted the way they did and how a lack of strong Pan-European institutions (especially a strong European central bank) exacerbated the continent's woes.
Kraut, if you ever do a video on Nazi Germany and America's rise as a superpower, I would highly recommend his books "Wages of Destruction" and "The Deluge". The former is considered THE book on the Nazi economy, linking economic and geopolitical reality and ideological insanity to explain why Germany went to war in September 1939, why it invaded the USSR in 1941, and started the Final Solution in 1942. (It also completely annihilates the myth of Speer as an apolitical technocratic miracle worker.)
Finished "Wages of Destruction" last week. What a fantastic book! I admire the guy for his hard, and, to me, seminal, work!
Superb book
I had to rewatch this because your soothing voice kept making me fall asleep the first time, in spite of how interesting the subject is.
This is a great video brilliantly explaining the deep couses of the crisis, however I am disappointed that you didn't mention how the crisis got far worse because of the Euro and the fact which you have mentioned about generations of Greeks having to pay for these mistakes for decades is mostly true because Greece surrendered its monetary sovereignty. If Greece had its own currency and was indebted in that currency they could just print money to pay off debt and to couse inflation making investment in Greece and tourism cheaper while disincentivizing imports putting Greece at far better position for economic recovery than what it got by being a Eurozone member.
I disagree, that would have just given then another means of postponing the situation and causing massive inflation. I think it is a good thing that Greece had no way to get out of the situation, if Greece really wanted to they could have defaulted on everything
@@aaroncampf You can borrow/inflate only so much from your people. There's no ceiling with a multinational currency
God think we didn't lose pln in Poland. Replacing it with euro was debated at some point
@@Fishmans what would stop greek banks from printing more money than Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and Weimar Germany?
But they also wouldn't have been able to borrow money to get out of the situation, and their own money would be valueless to outsiders. So yes, it would have provided some extra mechanism (And greece should never have been in the eurozone to begin with), but it would also have made other things harder.
Interestingly Japan is also famously a clientelist government in nature but for whatever reason never had the housing phenomena you mentioned. Probably because so few people in Japan live in proper homes and rather all live in apartments.
Declining population and a wave of young people going to the big cities to work.
@@ls200076 Greece has experienced both of those things. All countries experience clientelism in one way or another. Greece is a special because it never progressed from the late Ottoman era for reasons explained in the video. Japan wasnt as Low trust is Greece was/is. The shogun created strong states.
Probably since japan all about conformity as a social good in of itself
Beeing an italian it is hilarious to me that you had to even explain what a ghost job is
Hi Kraut, amazing video and as a Greek i got to say you hit the nail right on its head! I have a question, are there any references available for this video? I would love to read more on the low trust society and architecture relationship!
Very interesting. Great overview and analysis. Thank you.
As Theodoros Pangalos famously said “on the question of how we politicians “ate” so much money, the answer is simple: we hired you (in the public sector) through a system of corruption, lies and shame…..We “ate” the money….together…but you’re now well fed”
excellent as always m8
love your videos man
@@PakBallandSami thank you
This was wonderful! Thank you
One of the few sponsorships I respect since your recommending summat you’d recommend even without a sponsorship
Your content is unparalleled. Thank you for your thorough and neutral approach to history and current affairs. Its refreshing :)
I always had been interested in PASOK, this was lovely to watch :)
I guess the French meme that they're "pas ok" kinda holds true lol
thank you for jumping in and helping out on such short notice
@@Kraut_the_Parrot please do on punjab please
I appreciate your team's efforts in education & help people.
This reminded me so much of the situation in Argentina, the only diference being that instead of 700.000 public jobs we have millions! You should make a video about Argentina, it would be very interesting.
Yeah The Kirchners,Macri and Fernandez did a great mess
Great video as always! Could you make one about the debt crisis itself? About the way the greek governments, the EU and the IMF handled it
Very interesting point about politics in Greece being heavily reliant of clientelism, a parallel that I can draw to my own country, Malaysia.
For context, in Malaysia, politics is still very much segregated between race and class. Urbanite voters are fairly liberal, but at times still follows racial lines, while in rural seats race, religion, as well as how much money can be brought in by the elected official matter more. Add institutional corruption coming from a political elite class working closely with the monarchy who still own large swathes of land, and it makes an interesting mix. Might you consider making a video on Malaysian society? I think you might find the history here very very interesting
Malaysian politics will probably require a series of videos on the scale of Game of Thrones to describe.
These videos are so well done
I would love some accessible readings on the relation between low trust societies and clientilism, Kraut. This was a very fascinating 25 minutes for me. I find lot of parallels between this and the indian system of low trust (centuries of corporation and colonial rule), corruption, clientilism which works not along regional lines as much as it works along castes.
Hey I just recently discovered your channel and i want to say, thank you for the wonderful storytelling and well researched interesting topics. This sort of work is what would make most younger people more interested and engaged in the world stage.
Those are some very interesting points. I wish you would've gone a little deeper on the actual economics of the crisis. Also I do see that this would not be contributating a lot to the point you want to make with the video, but you completely left out how the accession of greece to the euro zone, and euro fiscal policies played into the crisis, not giving the greece economy the option to devalue their currency etc. It makes me feel like something is missing. Its a great video, I just hope you will keep up the depth and plurality of perspective we've come to love at this channel in your videos to come.
Kraut is a demolib, he wouldn't talk shit about EU's institutions
these videos are so good dude, it would be amazing if you could up the upload frequency
As a Dane I can say that this is still talked about in Denmark. We have not forgotten this and the general consensus is that their methods to evade taxes are nothing short of pure idiocy. For political parties to continuously fail to fix it is not based around democracy. It's straight up idiocracy. Scandinavia is a great example of how learning to trust the parliament and government, but still be critical and ask questions, can lead to extensive public welfare and high personal wealth on the same time. Kraut has already touched a little bit on Scandinavian history, but I'll add that Scandinavia hasn't always been this well connected. In the very early days it consisted entirely of small tribal communities that constantly fought and distrusted each other. This was also the case throughout a large timeframe of the Viking period and in Denmarks case it took Valdemar Sejr to finally unite all of Denmark into one kingdom, after centuries of fights between regional kings.
Denmark and Sweden has an especially curious history to share, as we're the two Scandinavian countries who have fought each other the most. Notable events are the time when Denmark hired mercenaries and completely wiped out the entire population of a Swedish island, not even sparing the kids (late viking period), as well as the time where Sweden invaded Zealand, which is the same island on which Copenhagen lies. What's particularly funny about the second time is that our king at the time consistently lost his battles in that war, but to avoid losing power, he got a propaganda song made as the national anthem. To this day, that song is still a national anthem of Denmark, so we technically have two national anthems. The one everyone hears at every sport event where we're present, is called "Der er et yndigt land" and the second, much lesser known, but for most Scandinavians funny as hell, "Kong Christian stod ved højen mast". King Christian did though not lose all of his battles with Sweden and at one point got enough victories to build an entire city in Sweden (something they won't admit today and insist on being pronounced differently) called Kristiansstad.
And while Scandinavians like to tease each other, there's most likely nothing that beats Denmarks relentless bullying of Sweden, which I, as a Dane, obviously happily participates in, whenever I get the chance. Purely for the joy of a Swede taking everything at face value, despite centuries of being shown why that is a horrible strategy against Danish irony and sarcasm.
so much of what you wrote is objectively inaccurate. From personal experience from visiting family in sweden there is tons of tax evasion and people overstate the trust of scandinavia
As a Czech, i do find some similarities with the distrust of people in their state as well. However, it manifests quite differently. The main difference is about the tax evasion thing as we went through this phase after the revolution in 89 when mainly businesses (the big ones as well as the small ones) did that and regular working people still religiously paid taxes. After many cases of tax evasions and frauds throughout the years the Czech public got extremely sensitive about this topic and now it’s closely observed by everyone (immediate bursts of outrage happen whenever some tax fraud appears in media). Nevertheless, it is still there and the most common form of it is by paying officially employees the minimal wage and unofficially giving them the rest in cash. It is done like that as the taxes for an employee are crazy high and many businesses simple could not operate if they were not paying the 24% from the minimal wage salary.
I really love how your previous videos tie in with this one. Especially how you tie family trust and governance in the Greek city states video and this video. It helps me reinforce the sociopolitical landscape of Greece and why it’s like this today. Great Work!
Finally a sponsorship that actually caught my attention.
If only I continued to learn how to draw.
Excellent as always! :)
Great video, as always! I don't know if you will read this, but it would very interesting if you ever made a video about the Estado Novo dictatorship in Portugal, the longest lasting right wing dictatorship in Europe (1933 - 1974) that surprisingly few people talk about on the internet. Cheers!
As a french, who is very much into Greece and currently learning greek, this video was very interesting and enlightening. I think though that this phenomenon is something that also appears in other Balkans countries. I haven't been in Greece (yet) but I've lived in Bulgaria almost a year, and I have observed this identical level of distrust, but also coupled with a high tendency for defeatism and pessimism. There was this saying "I'm good as long as my neighbor isn't". Actually, Bulgaria could be the subject of a whole video ahahah
Also, I've been watching your videos since I've discovered your series on Turkey, and I'm each time baffled by their quality. They may be long, but they are really easy to follow, due to a smart and fluid structure, points explained very clear, explanations that never get stuck in too complicated vocabulary, and the simplistic often naive imagery that lets your brain rests to digest the information.
So, not only your videos are very well made, but you also talk about very interesting topics, that are not often talked about, while never sounding too judgemental, trying to just show facts. I really like your videos :)
And finally, I know you probably already have a lot of topics in mind, but since I'm french, I'd like to suggest you a topic that might interest you: the ambiguous relationship of french people with french power, a paradoxical mix of rejection of authority, law and control, along with a fascination for strong figures and powerful state, and a socialist heart. Or, as a once saw in an article: "an anarchist society tributary of a strong state".
I think it would be the kind ot topics that you like talking about, analyzing current society behaviours by tracing their roots back to historical developments :)
I am a Greek living in Germany, and I admire the "French resistance" against their politicians. Even the most trivial things can lead to huge protests. That wouldnt be a thing here in Germany where people are usually more subject to authority. Even if it pisses them off, they are usually not demonstrating, or they keep their "protests" within the limits of the law.
Great video!
You are the best youtube regarding social sciences. By far. How did I not know about you earlier?