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On July 12 2015 16:58 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 07:25 warding wrote:
Normally used for what? Not as a way to identify which nations are lazy. If you look at productivity you'll simply find that workers in richer countries are more productive - simply because they tend to work in more capital intensive and value-creating industries.
EDIT: You can set those stats to look at only dependent employment. Greece still comes out on top of all western european countries. You can also check other stats like % of dependent workers (Men, 25-54yo) who work more than 40 hours per week (Greece: 86.1%, Germany: 67.7%, Netherlands: 54.6%). Hours worked per day or per week means very little. My wife is from Malaysia and they've got a 46-hour work week there, meaning that if you added Malaysia to those graphs, the whole of Europe would seem incredibly lazy. What matters is how efficient bureaucracy is, i.e. how much red tape does one need to go through to get something done. If a simple request takes four phone calls to different departments, who then have to look up stuff in badly organised or god forbid even paper files, that will not be as productive as someone who can just look up all the necessary information the customer needs on his computer because all files are stored centrally on a server which most employees have access to. Then there's still vertical hierarchy to take into account as well: having to ask the permission of superiors to sometimes do even the smallest thing, unnecessary levels of (middle) management etc. How much someone can get done in one hour is a whole lot more important than how much time that peson spends at the workplace.
It's always funny with the liberals how the solutions are always the same : less "rules" and more "competition".
Why is it that the most competitive multinational firms in the world still produced a heavy administration and are usually bound by tons of rules ? The administration in France - the most productive (by hour) country in europe, after luxembourg - is most likely bigger than any other EU country, but who cares Greeks small productivity is linked to its bureaucracy's inefficiency !
No, what define productivity is the capital accumulated - in all its forms - that people use through out their production.
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On July 12 2015 09:47 Integra wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 09:37 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 05:39 BurningSera wrote:On July 12 2015 04:43 DrCooper wrote:On July 12 2015 03:43 BurningSera wrote:
that comic ahahaha.
such easy life isn't it, you can keep having money to come in without actually doing anything other than saying 'we made mistakes' and people actually believe you. They shouldn't have passed their 2nd bailout really and now nobody wants to think about if greece failed again in a couple of years. (and they will fail again, god bless eu) Well to cut them some slack, the ECB and IMF were supposed to inspect and oversee the changes/reforms that were supposed to be made in Greece and didn't do a good job on that. Europe is not ready for a common currency, nor does it really want to be. Every country has their own monetary/fiscal policy, which would be ok if we had a transfer union. However a transfer union does not exist, nor will it ever (in the eurozone). Greece lacks the investment opportunities. Mario Draghi is desperately trying to get people to invest in greece with subsidies and a low interest rate, but Greece has no companies worth investing in. Banks, 2 Oil companies and private sports betting suppliers. Not exactly promising. From what i understand is that Greece has a strong attitude that they didn't let ECB/IMF get into their government/management at all (or very limited anyway), i thought that would be the focus point in this 3rd bailout? I mean look at Ireland, troika must have literally stormed into the central government and fixed/changed all the shitty policies from the ground, not sure what exactly happened back in that 2-3 years but ireland did listen and made changes accordingly; unlike Greece, which in my head they are a bunch of barbarians who are full of themselves and stubborn (and lazy). I was in athens back then and some locals i spoke with surprised me about many of them basically work half day (9am-2/3pm) and nobody actually paying tax in the country (and some people do that for decades). I don't believe that is entirely true but it is shocking to see how a nation functions like that (or anywhere near that). It is also obvious that the nation spent their bailout money to continue their luxury lifestyle rather than actually cut down their spendings etc (like every other eu countries since 2010). The worst thing is that even when the greeks are in this deep hell hole, i bet they still manage to get more money to live per month than most of the people in eastern/baltic countries. No country should get into this kind of deep hole in the first place, and i definitely don't agree on greece lacking investment opportunities, i was in thessaloniki too and god look at those rich landlords lol. I know my post is rather personal (because i honestly don't know much about them), for all i care they should start selling their temples etc just to get their shit sorted. Many people (including me) in west europe were fucked so hard by the recession in the past couple of years and you really don't see people spend/live their lives like the greeks in the past 5 years. + Show Spoiler + Really that's a stupid comment from the beginning to the end. Just to clarify one point, Greeks actually work more than french and germans. Proof : ![[image loading]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DkMfAOwGmoE/UCtPUk1zjdI/AAAAAAAAAGU/NchdoQEEitU/s1600/Work+Hours.png) On July 12 2015 07:45 Hryul wrote:
you can throw around numbers all the way you want, but it doesnt change the fact that they are simply unbelievable. again: with these numbers every worker in greece must work at least 8 hrs/day every day that isn't sat/sun and never go on vacation. ? How do you evaluate that ? There are 365 x 24 hours a year, so 8760 hours. With 8 hours a day of sleep (2920 hours) they have 5820 hours left - 2000 hours is not impossible, it only means they work a bit less than half the time they are awake. They have plenty of time for vacation (and it's an average that is heavily influenced by the numbers of hours the least productive part of Greeks economy are doing - for exemple in the least industrialized agriculture, where they have to work basically non stop without days offs). Such a shameful display by Norway compared to the other Nordic countries!! They clearly need reforms and their oil taken away from them! (Give it to Sweden please....) 
see those working hours graphs really really confused me, because it is certainly not what i saw when i was in athens+thessaloniki, and from the couple of greeks i spoke with when i was in uni and the locals, they did tell me the same thing many people work half day so i am definitely not pulling shit here lol.
i didnt want to spend more time to research on this because like everyone said productivity is the key, but if you search for 'working hours greece' you get more or less the info from this site:http://businessculture.org/southern-europe/business-culture-in-greece/work-life-balance-in-greece/
Banks are open from Monday to Thursday from 8am to 2.30pm and on Friday from 8am to 2pm. Shops open from 9am and close between 2.30pm to 3pm on Monday through Saturday; they also open in the evenings from 5pm to 9pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Recently, a law has been passed to allow shops to also open on Sundays, but only shops in tourist areas have begun to take advantage of this legislation.
that part from 5-9pm i am pretty sure it only applies to shops in shopping mall/street, they are calculating that in for every workers in the country so no wonder the working hours chart doesn't reflect the reality.
they come to conclusion from that:
The length of a typical working week in Greece is 8 hours a day, 5 days a week starting at between 8am and 9am. Greeks do spent more time working as, according to Eurostat, employees in Greece work on average 42 hours per week compared to a European average of 40.3 hours per week.
I am going with my guts to say that there must be some kind of methodology errors in conducting the working hours, would like to have some greeks tell us more about it.
also read this that i linked in my original post, it is from a pov of a greek writer thats rather consistent to what i said, that working hours and tax evasion etc:
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/06/23/is-anyone-honestly-surprised-that-greeks-dont-pay-their-debts/
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Greece debt crisis: EU summit cancelled as talks continue
A summit of all European Union members planned for Sunday has been cancelled as "very difficult" talks over a third bailout deal for Greece continue.
[...]
European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said it was "utterly unlikely" a mandate would be achieved in Sunday's meeting to start formal negotiations on the third bailout.
Slovakian Finance Minister Peter Kazimir was similarly downbeat, saying: "It's not possible to reach a deal today. We can agree on certain recommendations for the heads of state. That's all. The breach of trust... it's so big, it's not possible to achieve the deal."
source (BBC)
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On July 12 2015 17:45 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 16:58 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 07:25 warding wrote:
Normally used for what? Not as a way to identify which nations are lazy. If you look at productivity you'll simply find that workers in richer countries are more productive - simply because they tend to work in more capital intensive and value-creating industries.
EDIT: You can set those stats to look at only dependent employment. Greece still comes out on top of all western european countries. You can also check other stats like % of dependent workers (Men, 25-54yo) who work more than 40 hours per week (Greece: 86.1%, Germany: 67.7%, Netherlands: 54.6%). Hours worked per day or per week means very little. My wife is from Malaysia and they've got a 46-hour work week there, meaning that if you added Malaysia to those graphs, the whole of Europe would seem incredibly lazy. What matters is how efficient bureaucracy is, i.e. how much red tape does one need to go through to get something done. If a simple request takes four phone calls to different departments, who then have to look up stuff in badly organised or god forbid even paper files, that will not be as productive as someone who can just look up all the necessary information the customer needs on his computer because all files are stored centrally on a server which most employees have access to. Then there's still vertical hierarchy to take into account as well: having to ask the permission of superiors to sometimes do even the smallest thing, unnecessary levels of (middle) management etc. How much someone can get done in one hour is a whole lot more important than how much time that peson spends at the workplace. It's always funny with the liberals how the solutions are always the same : less "rules" and more "competition". Why is it that the most competitive multinational firms in the world still produced a heavy administration and are usually bound by tons of rules ? The administration in France - the most productive (by hour) country in europe, after luxembourg - is most likely bigger than any other EU country, but who cares Greeks small productivity is linked to its bureaucracy's inefficiency ! No, what define productivity is the capital accumulated - in all its forms - that people use through out their production.
I was actually arguing for less red tape, not for less regulation. There's a difference there.
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Maartendq I agree that hours worked is not a very interesting or useful measure. I was only using it to dispute the accusation that Greeks are lazy.
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On July 12 2015 19:23 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 17:45 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 16:58 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 07:25 warding wrote:
Normally used for what? Not as a way to identify which nations are lazy. If you look at productivity you'll simply find that workers in richer countries are more productive - simply because they tend to work in more capital intensive and value-creating industries.
EDIT: You can set those stats to look at only dependent employment. Greece still comes out on top of all western european countries. You can also check other stats like % of dependent workers (Men, 25-54yo) who work more than 40 hours per week (Greece: 86.1%, Germany: 67.7%, Netherlands: 54.6%). Hours worked per day or per week means very little. My wife is from Malaysia and they've got a 46-hour work week there, meaning that if you added Malaysia to those graphs, the whole of Europe would seem incredibly lazy. What matters is how efficient bureaucracy is, i.e. how much red tape does one need to go through to get something done. If a simple request takes four phone calls to different departments, who then have to look up stuff in badly organised or god forbid even paper files, that will not be as productive as someone who can just look up all the necessary information the customer needs on his computer because all files are stored centrally on a server which most employees have access to. Then there's still vertical hierarchy to take into account as well: having to ask the permission of superiors to sometimes do even the smallest thing, unnecessary levels of (middle) management etc. How much someone can get done in one hour is a whole lot more important than how much time that peson spends at the workplace. It's always funny with the liberals how the solutions are always the same : less "rules" and more "competition". Why is it that the most competitive multinational firms in the world still produced a heavy administration and are usually bound by tons of rules ? The administration in France - the most productive (by hour) country in europe, after luxembourg - is most likely bigger than any other EU country, but who cares Greeks small productivity is linked to its bureaucracy's inefficiency ! No, what define productivity is the capital accumulated - in all its forms - that people use through out their production. I was actually arguing for less red tape, not for less regulation. There's a difference there.
To get more productivity, you need more investment, more qualified workforce, more advanced technology, not "less" anything.
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On July 12 2015 19:29 warding wrote:
Maartendq I agree that hours worked is not a very interesting or useful measure. I was only using it to dispute the accusation that Greeks are lazy.
Oh yeah that accusation is beyond stupid, I agree.
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On July 12 2015 19:30 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 19:23 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 17:45 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 16:58 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 07:25 warding wrote:
Normally used for what? Not as a way to identify which nations are lazy. If you look at productivity you'll simply find that workers in richer countries are more productive - simply because they tend to work in more capital intensive and value-creating industries.
EDIT: You can set those stats to look at only dependent employment. Greece still comes out on top of all western european countries. You can also check other stats like % of dependent workers (Men, 25-54yo) who work more than 40 hours per week (Greece: 86.1%, Germany: 67.7%, Netherlands: 54.6%). Hours worked per day or per week means very little. My wife is from Malaysia and they've got a 46-hour work week there, meaning that if you added Malaysia to those graphs, the whole of Europe would seem incredibly lazy. What matters is how efficient bureaucracy is, i.e. how much red tape does one need to go through to get something done. If a simple request takes four phone calls to different departments, who then have to look up stuff in badly organised or god forbid even paper files, that will not be as productive as someone who can just look up all the necessary information the customer needs on his computer because all files are stored centrally on a server which most employees have access to. Then there's still vertical hierarchy to take into account as well: having to ask the permission of superiors to sometimes do even the smallest thing, unnecessary levels of (middle) management etc. How much someone can get done in one hour is a whole lot more important than how much time that peson spends at the workplace. It's always funny with the liberals how the solutions are always the same : less "rules" and more "competition". Why is it that the most competitive multinational firms in the world still produced a heavy administration and are usually bound by tons of rules ? The administration in France - the most productive (by hour) country in europe, after luxembourg - is most likely bigger than any other EU country, but who cares Greeks small productivity is linked to its bureaucracy's inefficiency ! No, what define productivity is the capital accumulated - in all its forms - that people use through out their production. I was actually arguing for less red tape, not for less regulation. There's a difference there. To get more productivity, you need more investment, more qualified workforce, more advanced technology, not "less" anything.
How do you think productivity will increase when every decision, no matter how trivial, requires the approval of several levels of management (that exist only to satisfy people's egos), who may not find that decision to be a priority and might procrastinate on it? Or worse, if decisions require the filling out of endless forms, which need to be approved by a manager and so on and so on.
It doesn't matter how qualified your workforce is, or how advanced your technology is, stuff like that will grind every administration to a halt. In the end its only purpose becomes to sustain itself rather than provide services for the people.
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On July 12 2015 20:31 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 19:30 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 19:23 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 17:45 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 16:58 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 07:25 warding wrote:
Normally used for what? Not as a way to identify which nations are lazy. If you look at productivity you'll simply find that workers in richer countries are more productive - simply because they tend to work in more capital intensive and value-creating industries.
EDIT: You can set those stats to look at only dependent employment. Greece still comes out on top of all western european countries. You can also check other stats like % of dependent workers (Men, 25-54yo) who work more than 40 hours per week (Greece: 86.1%, Germany: 67.7%, Netherlands: 54.6%). Hours worked per day or per week means very little. My wife is from Malaysia and they've got a 46-hour work week there, meaning that if you added Malaysia to those graphs, the whole of Europe would seem incredibly lazy. What matters is how efficient bureaucracy is, i.e. how much red tape does one need to go through to get something done. If a simple request takes four phone calls to different departments, who then have to look up stuff in badly organised or god forbid even paper files, that will not be as productive as someone who can just look up all the necessary information the customer needs on his computer because all files are stored centrally on a server which most employees have access to. Then there's still vertical hierarchy to take into account as well: having to ask the permission of superiors to sometimes do even the smallest thing, unnecessary levels of (middle) management etc. How much someone can get done in one hour is a whole lot more important than how much time that peson spends at the workplace. It's always funny with the liberals how the solutions are always the same : less "rules" and more "competition". Why is it that the most competitive multinational firms in the world still produced a heavy administration and are usually bound by tons of rules ? The administration in France - the most productive (by hour) country in europe, after luxembourg - is most likely bigger than any other EU country, but who cares Greeks small productivity is linked to its bureaucracy's inefficiency ! No, what define productivity is the capital accumulated - in all its forms - that people use through out their production. I was actually arguing for less red tape, not for less regulation. There's a difference there. To get more productivity, you need more investment, more qualified workforce, more advanced technology, not "less" anything. How do you think productivity will increase when every decision, no matter how trivial, requires the approval of several levels of management (that exist only to satisfy people's egos), who may not find that decision to be a priority and might procrastinate on it? Or worse, if decisions require the filling out of endless forms, which need to be approved by a manager and so on and so on. It doesn't matter how qualified your workforce is, or how advanced your technology is, stuff like that will grind every administration to a halt. In the end its only purpose becomes to sustain itself rather than provide services for the people.
That's just an ideological discourse with 0 empirical ground. I gave you an exemple (France) of a very bureaucratic state and a very productive one. Bureaucracy has also a lot of positive impact on productivity - from this point of view, Greece needs more bureaucracy not less - as pointed out by the (very liberal) endogene growth theory.
Sure bureaucracy have famous inefficiencies, but if you really think those inefficiencies are at the core of one country's lack of productivity, you're putting not only a finger but your whole hand in your eye. But well, as a good liberal, rational arguments will have no impact on you whatsoever so let's agree to disagree.
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Why germans are still in EU?
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French bureaucracy is hardly a good example of good bureacracy in action.
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On July 12 2015 21:01 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
French bureaucracy is hardly a good example of good bureacracy in action.
Ask US what they think about their bureaucracy... French people that went there know that french bureaucracy is not that bad.
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On July 12 2015 21:01 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
French bureaucracy is hardly a good example of good bureacracy in action.
Exactly my point, french bureaucracy is far from perfect, and yet our labor productivity is second only to Luxembourg in Europe.
On July 12 2015 21:03 Furikawari wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 21:01 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
French bureaucracy is hardly a good example of good bureacracy in action. Ask US what they think about their bureaucracy... French people that went there know that french bureaucracy is not that bad.
Well, in the US, they don't need as much paper to create a firm, to pay their taxes, or to get a credit.
A tribune from Varoufakis giving his point of view in the question "why Germany refuse to restructurate the debt" :
Behind Germany’s refusal to grant Greece debt relief – Op-Ed in The Guardian
Tomorrow’s EU Summit will seal Greece’s fate in the Eurozone. As these lines are being written, Euclid Tsakalotos, my great friend, comrade and successor as Greece’s Finance Ministry is heading for a Eurogroup meeting that will determine whether a last ditch agreement between Greece and our creditors is reached and whether this agreement contains the degree of debt relief that could render the Greek economy viable within the Euro Area. Euclid is taking with him a moderate, well-thought out debt restructuring plan that is undoubtedly in the interests both of Greece and its creditors. (Details of it I intend to publish here on Monday, once the dust has settled.) If these modest debt restructuring proposals are turned down, as the German finance minister has foreshadowed, Sunday’s EU Summit will be deciding between kicking Greece out of the Eurozone now or keeping it in for a little while longer, in a state of deepening destitution, until it leaves some time in the future. The question is: Why is the German finance Minister, Dr Wolfgang Schäuble, resisting a sensible, mild, mutually beneficial debt restructure? [...]
The euro is a hybrid of a fixed exchange-rate regime, like the 1980s ERM, or the 1930s gold standard, and a state currency. The former relies on the fear of expulsion to hold together, while state money involves mechanisms for recycling surpluses between member states (for instance, a federal budget, common bonds). The eurozone falls between these stools – it is more than an exchange-rate regime and less than a state.
And there’s the rub. After the crisis of 2008/9, Europe didn’t know how to respond. Should it prepare the ground for at least one expulsion (that is, Grexit) to strengthen discipline? Or move to a federation? So far it has done neither, its existentialist angst forever rising. Schäuble is convinced that as things stand, he needs a Grexit to clear the air, one way or another. Suddenly, a permanently unsustainable Greek public debt, without which the risk of Grexit would fade, has acquired a new usefulness for Schauble.
What do I mean by that? Based on months of negotiation, my conviction is that the German finance minister wants Greece to be pushed out of the single currency to put the fear of God into the French and have them accept his model of a disciplinarian eurozone.
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/11/behind-germanys-refusal-to-grant-greece-debt-relief-op-ed-in-the-guardian/
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It seems varoufakis gets the point. Schäuble obviously realized that a federation with France, Italy and Spain can only work if these countries reform or Germany itself will have to adopt their style of government if they do not want to be the sole large supporter of these economies, which in 20-30 years will then put Europe as a whole in Greece's position. Also talking about 8-9 bn new money or 80-100bn of new money is a big difference. I do not see the mutual benefit of debt restructuring either. The loss will be incurred either way but in case of a Grexit you dont have to rely on Greece and hope the losses dont climb any higher.
Also I would be very interested in the source of the productivity example for France. As far as I know France relies on a few large international companies not particularly on the French productivity.
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On July 12 2015 21:45 Yuljan wrote:
It seems varoufakis gets the point. Schäuble obviously realized that a federation with France, Italy and Spain can only work if these countries reform or Germany itself will have to adopt their style of government if they do not want to be the sole large supporter of these economies, which in 20-30 years will then put Europe as a whole in Greece's position. Also talking about 8-9 bn new money or 80-100bn of new money is a big difference. I do not see the mutual benefit of debt restructuring either. The loss will be incurred either way but in case of a Grexit you dont have to rely on Greece and hope the losses dont climb any higher.
Also I would be very interested in the source of the productivity example for France. As far as I know France relies on a few large international companies not particularly on the French productivity.
Funny way to put it, because the entire XX th century has been the opposite : Germany on the back of France and Europe, forcing everyone to put up with (and pay for) their costly reunification.
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Bureaucratic efficiency has a lot to do with cultural mores, as much as the structural systems. You can have the best structural system, but if no one gets their work done each week, it's not going to do much. And the French have a long history of working very hard.
But the lifeblood of a Modern Economy is defensible property rights. Which seems to be the largest problem, in the structural sense, that Greece has. If you've read up on any Emerging Economy issues, the property rights is a constant problem. Nothing really gets done very quickly when you don't know who will get the reward for the work. And you need those property rights defended at the Government & Legal levels. (It's normally the Legal level that causes more problems.)
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On July 12 2015 20:49 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 20:31 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 19:30 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 19:23 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 17:45 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 16:58 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 07:25 warding wrote:
Normally used for what? Not as a way to identify which nations are lazy. If you look at productivity you'll simply find that workers in richer countries are more productive - simply because they tend to work in more capital intensive and value-creating industries.
EDIT: You can set those stats to look at only dependent employment. Greece still comes out on top of all western european countries. You can also check other stats like % of dependent workers (Men, 25-54yo) who work more than 40 hours per week (Greece: 86.1%, Germany: 67.7%, Netherlands: 54.6%). Hours worked per day or per week means very little. My wife is from Malaysia and they've got a 46-hour work week there, meaning that if you added Malaysia to those graphs, the whole of Europe would seem incredibly lazy. What matters is how efficient bureaucracy is, i.e. how much red tape does one need to go through to get something done. If a simple request takes four phone calls to different departments, who then have to look up stuff in badly organised or god forbid even paper files, that will not be as productive as someone who can just look up all the necessary information the customer needs on his computer because all files are stored centrally on a server which most employees have access to. Then there's still vertical hierarchy to take into account as well: having to ask the permission of superiors to sometimes do even the smallest thing, unnecessary levels of (middle) management etc. How much someone can get done in one hour is a whole lot more important than how much time that peson spends at the workplace. It's always funny with the liberals how the solutions are always the same : less "rules" and more "competition". Why is it that the most competitive multinational firms in the world still produced a heavy administration and are usually bound by tons of rules ? The administration in France - the most productive (by hour) country in europe, after luxembourg - is most likely bigger than any other EU country, but who cares Greeks small productivity is linked to its bureaucracy's inefficiency ! No, what define productivity is the capital accumulated - in all its forms - that people use through out their production. I was actually arguing for less red tape, not for less regulation. There's a difference there. To get more productivity, you need more investment, more qualified workforce, more advanced technology, not "less" anything. How do you think productivity will increase when every decision, no matter how trivial, requires the approval of several levels of management (that exist only to satisfy people's egos), who may not find that decision to be a priority and might procrastinate on it? Or worse, if decisions require the filling out of endless forms, which need to be approved by a manager and so on and so on. It doesn't matter how qualified your workforce is, or how advanced your technology is, stuff like that will grind every administration to a halt. In the end its only purpose becomes to sustain itself rather than provide services for the people. That's just an ideological discourse with 0 empirical ground. I gave you an exemple (France) of a very bureaucratic state and a very productive one. Bureaucracy has also a lot of positive impact on productivity - from this point of view, Greece needs more bureaucracy not less - as pointed out by the (very liberal) endogene growth theory. Sure bureaucracy have famous inefficiencies, but if you really think those inefficiencies are at the core of one country's lack of productivity, you're putting not only a finger but your whole hand in your eye. But well, as a good liberal, rational arguments will have no impact on you whatsoever so let's agree to disagree.
The red tape people have to go through to get anything done is one of the main complaints about the Greek public sector. It is bloated, inefficient, recruitment is based on nepotism and clientelism rather than meritocracy, and most importantly, Greece can't afford it any longer. And you think Greece needs not less, but even more of that? How is that going to help?
You cannot compare the bureaucracy of a country like France to the bureaucracy of Greece. They're on completely different levels, both in terms of workforce qualifications and workforce integrity.
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On July 12 2015 22:34 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 20:49 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 20:31 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 19:30 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 19:23 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 17:45 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 16:58 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 07:25 warding wrote:
Normally used for what? Not as a way to identify which nations are lazy. If you look at productivity you'll simply find that workers in richer countries are more productive - simply because they tend to work in more capital intensive and value-creating industries.
EDIT: You can set those stats to look at only dependent employment. Greece still comes out on top of all western european countries. You can also check other stats like % of dependent workers (Men, 25-54yo) who work more than 40 hours per week (Greece: 86.1%, Germany: 67.7%, Netherlands: 54.6%). Hours worked per day or per week means very little. My wife is from Malaysia and they've got a 46-hour work week there, meaning that if you added Malaysia to those graphs, the whole of Europe would seem incredibly lazy. What matters is how efficient bureaucracy is, i.e. how much red tape does one need to go through to get something done. If a simple request takes four phone calls to different departments, who then have to look up stuff in badly organised or god forbid even paper files, that will not be as productive as someone who can just look up all the necessary information the customer needs on his computer because all files are stored centrally on a server which most employees have access to. Then there's still vertical hierarchy to take into account as well: having to ask the permission of superiors to sometimes do even the smallest thing, unnecessary levels of (middle) management etc. How much someone can get done in one hour is a whole lot more important than how much time that peson spends at the workplace. It's always funny with the liberals how the solutions are always the same : less "rules" and more "competition". Why is it that the most competitive multinational firms in the world still produced a heavy administration and are usually bound by tons of rules ? The administration in France - the most productive (by hour) country in europe, after luxembourg - is most likely bigger than any other EU country, but who cares Greeks small productivity is linked to its bureaucracy's inefficiency ! No, what define productivity is the capital accumulated - in all its forms - that people use through out their production. I was actually arguing for less red tape, not for less regulation. There's a difference there. To get more productivity, you need more investment, more qualified workforce, more advanced technology, not "less" anything. How do you think productivity will increase when every decision, no matter how trivial, requires the approval of several levels of management (that exist only to satisfy people's egos), who may not find that decision to be a priority and might procrastinate on it? Or worse, if decisions require the filling out of endless forms, which need to be approved by a manager and so on and so on. It doesn't matter how qualified your workforce is, or how advanced your technology is, stuff like that will grind every administration to a halt. In the end its only purpose becomes to sustain itself rather than provide services for the people. That's just an ideological discourse with 0 empirical ground. I gave you an exemple (France) of a very bureaucratic state and a very productive one. Bureaucracy has also a lot of positive impact on productivity - from this point of view, Greece needs more bureaucracy not less - as pointed out by the (very liberal) endogene growth theory. Sure bureaucracy have famous inefficiencies, but if you really think those inefficiencies are at the core of one country's lack of productivity, you're putting not only a finger but your whole hand in your eye. But well, as a good liberal, rational arguments will have no impact on you whatsoever so let's agree to disagree. The red tape people have to go through to get anything done is one of the main complaints about the Greek public sector. It is bloated, inefficient, recruitment is based on nepotism and clientelism rather than meritocracy, and most importantly, Greece can't afford it any longer. And you think Greece needs not less, but even more of that? How is that going to help? You cannot compare the bureaucracy of a country like France to the bureaucracy of Greece. They're on completely different levels, both in terms of workforce qualifications and workforce integrity.
So the problem is not that they need less bureaucracy, but more state. They need rules, a judicial system and a police efficient enough to punish corruption, etc. All that need more investment and not less, that s a fact and that was my point since the beginning.
And when I said capital in all its form I include institutions (which are also something you accumulate).
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On July 12 2015 23:00 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 22:34 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 20:49 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 20:31 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 19:30 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 19:23 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 17:45 WhiteDog wrote:On July 12 2015 16:58 maartendq wrote:On July 12 2015 07:25 warding wrote:
Normally used for what? Not as a way to identify which nations are lazy. If you look at productivity you'll simply find that workers in richer countries are more productive - simply because they tend to work in more capital intensive and value-creating industries.
EDIT: You can set those stats to look at only dependent employment. Greece still comes out on top of all western european countries. You can also check other stats like % of dependent workers (Men, 25-54yo) who work more than 40 hours per week (Greece: 86.1%, Germany: 67.7%, Netherlands: 54.6%). Hours worked per day or per week means very little. My wife is from Malaysia and they've got a 46-hour work week there, meaning that if you added Malaysia to those graphs, the whole of Europe would seem incredibly lazy. What matters is how efficient bureaucracy is, i.e. how much red tape does one need to go through to get something done. If a simple request takes four phone calls to different departments, who then have to look up stuff in badly organised or god forbid even paper files, that will not be as productive as someone who can just look up all the necessary information the customer needs on his computer because all files are stored centrally on a server which most employees have access to. Then there's still vertical hierarchy to take into account as well: having to ask the permission of superiors to sometimes do even the smallest thing, unnecessary levels of (middle) management etc. How much someone can get done in one hour is a whole lot more important than how much time that peson spends at the workplace. It's always funny with the liberals how the solutions are always the same : less "rules" and more "competition". Why is it that the most competitive multinational firms in the world still produced a heavy administration and are usually bound by tons of rules ? The administration in France - the most productive (by hour) country in europe, after luxembourg - is most likely bigger than any other EU country, but who cares Greeks small productivity is linked to its bureaucracy's inefficiency ! No, what define productivity is the capital accumulated - in all its forms - that people use through out their production. I was actually arguing for less red tape, not for less regulation. There's a difference there. To get more productivity, you need more investment, more qualified workforce, more advanced technology, not "less" anything. How do you think productivity will increase when every decision, no matter how trivial, requires the approval of several levels of management (that exist only to satisfy people's egos), who may not find that decision to be a priority and might procrastinate on it? Or worse, if decisions require the filling out of endless forms, which need to be approved by a manager and so on and so on. It doesn't matter how qualified your workforce is, or how advanced your technology is, stuff like that will grind every administration to a halt. In the end its only purpose becomes to sustain itself rather than provide services for the people. That's just an ideological discourse with 0 empirical ground. I gave you an exemple (France) of a very bureaucratic state and a very productive one. Bureaucracy has also a lot of positive impact on productivity - from this point of view, Greece needs more bureaucracy not less - as pointed out by the (very liberal) endogene growth theory. Sure bureaucracy have famous inefficiencies, but if you really think those inefficiencies are at the core of one country's lack of productivity, you're putting not only a finger but your whole hand in your eye. But well, as a good liberal, rational arguments will have no impact on you whatsoever so let's agree to disagree. The red tape people have to go through to get anything done is one of the main complaints about the Greek public sector. It is bloated, inefficient, recruitment is based on nepotism and clientelism rather than meritocracy, and most importantly, Greece can't afford it any longer. And you think Greece needs not less, but even more of that? How is that going to help? You cannot compare the bureaucracy of a country like France to the bureaucracy of Greece. They're on completely different levels, both in terms of workforce qualifications and workforce integrity. So the problem is not that they need less bureaucracy, but more state. They need rules, a judicial system and a police efficient enough to punish corruption, etc. All that need more investment and not less, that s a fact.
Then I guess we are in agreement!
I am all for powerful, effective states but against mountains upon mountains of paperwork and regulations to get even the most basic things done. You don't want to know what it takes just to rent out a spare room of your house in Belgium.
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On July 12 2015 21:47 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2015 21:45 Yuljan wrote:
It seems varoufakis gets the point. Schäuble obviously realized that a federation with France, Italy and Spain can only work if these countries reform or Germany itself will have to adopt their style of government if they do not want to be the sole large supporter of these economies, which in 20-30 years will then put Europe as a whole in Greece's position. Also talking about 8-9 bn new money or 80-100bn of new money is a big difference. I do not see the mutual benefit of debt restructuring either. The loss will be incurred either way but in case of a Grexit you dont have to rely on Greece and hope the losses dont climb any higher.
Also I would be very interested in the source of the productivity example for France. As far as I know France relies on a few large international companies not particularly on the French productivity. Funny way to put it, because the entire XX th century has been the opposite : Germany on the back of France and Europe, forcing everyone to put up with (and pay for) their costly reunification.
Again I would be very grateful for sources. I am always happy to learn something new.
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EPT
