What are the Greek Austerity measures?

nightwatchman

I have to admit that I had no luck finding more comprehensive data.
I am sure that PasturesNew will manage it better than me.
However I got the follow 2 quotes from Wiki regarding Greece economy and its civil sector.

The Greek labor force, which totals approximately 5 million, works the second highest number of hours per year on average among OECD countries, after South Korea.[36] The Groningen Growth & Development Centre has published a poll revealing that between 1995 and 2005, Greece was the country whose workers worked the most hours/year among European nations; Greeks worked an average of 1,900 hours per year, followed by Spaniards (average of 1,800 hours/year).[37]

The public sector accounts for about 40% of total economic output.

So let’s assume that all workers in Greece have equal pay.
Greek population of about 11 millions.
The 60% of the Greek economy (3 million privet sector workers?) has to be taxed to pay for the other 40% (2 million public sector workers?), is that right?
(Generali could answer or illustrate it better)

On top of that their tax has to pay for everyone’s pensions (2-3milion? I don’t have idea).

And also privet sector workers have to feed themselves and their families.

Of the 3 million privet sector workers how many of them earning wage that is taxable?
Many will be on minimal wage so hardly any revenue from them, and the self employed like doctors or lawyers will fiddle with the tax.

Under this burden they could work 3,800 hours/year and will still not manage to balance the books.

Ilya_Ilyich

I appreciate that you seem to be approaching this in good faith but c'mon, you're really grasping at straws now. Public employees also pay tax, and also have families to feed.

Perhaps interesting:

Greece has one of the lowest rates of public employment among OECD countries, with general government employing just 7.9% of the total labour force in 2008. This is a slight increase from 2000, when the rate was 6.8%. Across the OECD area, the share of government employment ranges from 6.7% to 29.3%, with an average of 15%. The Greek government has plans to further decrease this share, by replacing only 20% of staff leaving on retirement. Public employment is also highly centralised in Greece, with over 80% of staff working at the central government level.

From the OECD, citing ILO figures.

vivatifosi

I went looking for some more stats on the size of the public sector and their pay. There's some stuff on EU sites, but they are looooonnnnnngggggg and even worse booooooooooooooooooorrrriiiiiinnnngg.

However while looking, I found the blog of a Greece based management consultant, who's trying to look at things from a Greek perspective and is also looking for data and reaching some interesting conclusions. Well worth a read:

http://www.philip-atticus.com/2011/09/public-sector-employment-in-greece.html

If you click on his blog's home page he is blogging more or less daily on the changes and its an interesting POV.

ILW

Simple question then:

If the Greek public sector is relatively small, how did they run op such a large debt?

Linton

According to here its because their tax collection rate is low.

Also see here for info on Greek public spending

vivatifosi

ILW wrote: »

Simple question then:

If the Greek public sector is relatively small, how did they run op such a large debt?

According to the bloke I've linked to above, one of the reasons is that the EU sent funding to Greece to bring its infrastructure up to a suitable level. He wrote:

Since Greece’s European Union entry, this process was heavily driven by EU funding and by the “convergence” philosophy. Greece was granted billions in structural and cohesion funds every year, intended to bring its infrastructure, institutions and private sector up to a competitive level so that it could achieve “convergence” with the existing EU member states. Part of this included the increase of wages in the public and private sectors. It is therefore ironic to hear today that Greek wages have increase more than German ones, and therefore must be cut. This increase in wages and in GDP/capita was precisely the point of convergence and the so-called “Objective 1“ regions.


This EU money was almost entirely channelled through ministries, which led in turn to the expansion of patronage and corruption in public contracts. No political party in Greece disputes this: most campaign on the premise that they will end corruption; then turn around and continue these practises once in power. Oddly enough, the EU never took real measures to prevent this, despite overwhelming evidence of common practise over time. I should add that neither occurrence is restricted to Greece.


The fact that EU funding was typically reimbursed after evidence of expenditure was made also contributed to Greece’s ballooning public debt: the government borrowed money to complete over-priced, inefficient projects, and ignored commercial reality. In many ways, EU funding played the same role as natural gas in Holland in the 1970s, or petroleum in Saudi Arabia today: a condition known as “Dutch disease.” This leads to the declining competitiveness of exports due to inflation, and in the case of Greece, a massive expansion of over-priced public sector projects financed through EU funds.


The end result of all this is a society and political system which finds itself in a struggle between what it views as public sector privilege and political spoils and the fact that the foreign money (loans or subsidies) to pay for this has run out. The focal point of this struggle is the public sector.

ILW

Are the grants that the EU give for development loans rather than grants then?

vivatifosi

ILW wrote: »

Are the grants that the EU give for development loans rather than grants then?

He specifically refers to it throughout as funding rather than a grant, so I don't know. He answers questions on his blog though, so there's scope to ask. Also, IIRC from the UK, even if you received grant funding, you had to match fund it.