Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/07/19

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Subject: [Leica] Luis and Steve
From: rclark01 at comcast.net (Robert Clark)
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 10:16:47 -0400
References: <CA4AA02B.4CC2E%chris@chriscrawfordphoto.com><63BCEA55-BB7D-454D-BB85-A13FC80680DE@frozenlight.eu> <0C2453B8-20E2-4284-96EE-78311EBCED6A@btinternet.com>

I spent about eight days in Greece this summer and was quite interested in 
what I might find. While the historical components are fascinating, there's 
little else there. As Nathan said, they have little to nothing to export to 
the world in terms of Greek expertise. We found the country to be a pleasant 
place but with a ramshackle economy, very very poor infrastructure, and many 
dilapidated buildings/residences. Many structures had been abandoned in 
mid-construction. The place just generally looked unkept with grass and 
weeds everywhere and lots of people sitting around. Athens struck me as an 
organic place...it just grew up without any zoning, purpose of areas, or 
anything of the sort. Even the administration of the ruins was suspect...we 
bought tickets for a certain archeological area and were told by the ticket 
seller it would close in two hours. We get inside and 20 minutes later, they 
were shooing us out.

>From what I learned given Greece's tumultous recent history, there appears 
to be no loyalty to the government but to small areas and what used to be 
called tribes. People don't feel any obligation to do things that are 
supportive of the country economically. On the other hand, I drove on the 
worst roads I've ever seen and then on the best roads I've ever seen, too. 
The roads leading from the new airport are spectacular as are other 
motorways leading south from Athens. Going east towards Delphi and then to 
Olympia, the roads quickly deteriorate to almost paved goat paths.

Oh...things were much cheaper in Greece compared to Italy or France, too. 
Too bad they can't export tourism.

Robert Clark
Lancaster, PA
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Frank Dernie" <Frank.Dernie at btinternet.com>
To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 6:21 AM
Subject: Re: [Leica] Luis and Steve


> Spot on Nathan. Scary to think the only taxpayers are the public employees 
> since that means nobody is topping up the pot at all, since tax paid by 
> public employees goes straight into their next pay packet to be topped up 
> by money paid in by non-paid-out-of-the-same-pot taxpayers.
> Greece really is a millstone.
> FD
>
> On 19 Jul, 2011, at 09:18, Nathan Wajsman wrote:
>
>> First of all, Greece has by far the highest debt, 160% of GDP or so, 
>> about twice as much as the US. Secondly, the economy is backwards, 
>> dysfunctional (basically, only public sector employees pay taxes, the 
>> rest cheat and get away with it, at least until now). Spain has some 
>> world-class companies, like Zara, Santander (yes, I know it is a bank, 
>> but banks are still needed), Telefonica, bits of Airbus, high-speed train 
>> expertise, good medical research etc. Greece has none of those things, 
>> just some ruins and ouzo. In the old days it could compete on costs by 
>> devaluing its  currency, the drachma, from time to time, but that option 
>> is not open to it inside the Euro zone.
>>
>> Finally, Greek politicians are simply crooks. They actually falsified 
>> national accounts--think Enron on a country scale.
>>
>> Aside from its geographic location, I have a hard time thinking of Greece 
>> as a proper European country. They had their glory days, but that was 
>> about 2500 years ago.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Nathan
>>
>> Nathan Wajsman
>> Alicante, Spain
>> http://www.frozenlight.eu
>> http://www.greatpix.eu
>> http://www.nathanfoto.com
>> PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
>> Blog: http://www.fotocycle.dk/blog
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> 



Replies: Reply from mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner) ([Leica] Luis and Steve)
In reply to: Message from chris at chriscrawfordphoto.com (Chris Crawford) ([Leica] Luis and Steve)
Message from photo at frozenlight.eu (Nathan Wajsman) ([Leica] Luis and Steve)
Message from Frank.Dernie at btinternet.com (Frank Dernie) ([Leica] Luis and Steve)