Greece Special

Summary

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More or Less: Greece Special — July 10, 2015

Main Theme
In this special episode, Tim Harford and the More or Less team analyze and challenge popular statistics and myths about the Greek economic crisis. With humor and sharp analysis, they unravel misleading figures from the news, dig into the truth behind infamous anecdotes about Greece’s economy, and use Homeric analogies to make sense of the Eurozone’s troubles.

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Episode Structure & Key Insights

Greek Mythology & the Euro Crisis (00:13–12:19)

Homeric Analogies: Making Sense of Eurozone Chaos

• The episode opens with an extensive analogy to Homer's Odyssey, using Greek myths to explain the complex story of how Greece joined and struggled in the Eurozone.
  • Trojan Horse: Greece allegedly "smuggled" its way into the Eurozone using creative financial tricks with the help of Goldman Sachs, hiding the true scale of its borrowing.

    “Instead of calling Odysseus…they called Goldman Sachs. And they asked Goldman Sachs to structure this clever financial deal that put a lot of Greek borrowing off the books.” — D (02:18)

  • The Cyclops (International Bond Market): The Euro acted like the sheep the Greeks hid under, letting countries appear equally creditworthy to investors who overlooked real risks.

    “So clinging on beneath it all these national governments, some of which were credit worthy and some of which were not, and yet the bond markets acted as though they were all pretty much the same.” — D (05:09)

  • Circe and the "PIGS": The influx of cheap money led to varying situations in Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, though not always due to "gluttony" as the PIGS acronym suggests.

    “The pig shorthand isn’t very flattering.” — A (07:10)

  • Sirens & Commitment Strategy: Greek commitment to the Euro meant they couldn’t escape through devaluation, much like Odysseus being tied to the mast.

    “It turns out that the story of the Sirens is a classic in economic theory, and it represents the idea that sometimes you can gain an advantage from tying your own hands. It’s called a commitment strategy…” — D (10:57)

  • Charybdis Whirlpools: Sticking to commitments can be fatal when circumstances become extreme.

    “...all I'm saying is, well, it’s a good job he wasn’t tied to any masts at the time.” — D (11:49)

Notable Moments

• Sound of German Laughter: Breaking the usual seriousness of Eurozone discussions.
  • [00:43] “This story is so ridiculous.” — C (as a German laughing)
• Holy Moly Herb: Discussion about what protects the UK from Eurozone storms.

  “So I think the holy herb in this case is…has been the pound.” — B (09:39)

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Busting Greek Economic Myths

The Porsche Cayenne Myth (12:19–14:32)

• Claim: There are more Porsche Cayennes registered in Greece than taxpayers declaring over €50,000 income.
• Reality: Totally false. Since 2003, only around 1,500 Cayennes sold in Greece, vs. over 311,420 people declaring €50,000+ income in 2010.

  “This story is so ridiculous.” — Lucas Kunze from Porsche (14:08)

The 90% Tax Collection Myth (14:32–17:15)

• Claim: 89.5% of taxes went uncollected in Greece in 2010.
• Reality: Misinterpretation. The figure refers to historical tax debts, not taxes due in 2010. Actual collection was around €70 billion (34% of GDP).

  “To claim that in 2010 the Greek didn’t collect almost 90% of tax due that year is false.” — F (15:16)

The Greek "Tax Dodging" Reality (17:11–18:21)

• Truth: Greece does have tax collection issues, compounded by a large undeclared (cash-in-hand) economy, though it's not alone in Europe.

  “Greece has a problem. ... Italy is up there alongside it. But it is an issue.” — Richard Murphy (18:07)

Greeks—Lazy or Hardest Working? (18:21–22:14)

• Myth: Greeks are lazy.
• Fact: Greeks work the most hours per worker in Europe (~2,000 annually vs. 1,371 for Germany), largely because of high self-employment and less part-time work in Greece.

  “This means the average Greek is working 40% longer.” — A (19:21)

• Productivity: Despite long hours, Greek workers are less productive. Germany is 9th in productivity per hour among OECD nations; Greece is 25th.

  “...by this method, Germany ranks 9th most productive … while Greece drops to 25th.” — A (22:14)

Greek Suicide Statistics (22:52–23:39)

• Claim: More than 10,000 Greeks committed suicide over five years (as a result of austerity).
• Fact: Official data suggest about 400 suicides a year pre-2012, possibly adding to around 2,000–3,800 for five years, not 10,000.

  “Perhaps 2,000 suicides might be a more reasonable estimate.” — Prof. Charles Branistow (23:18)

Greek Railways: Cheaper to Send by Taxi? (24:26–29:39)

• Claim: It’s cheaper to send rail passengers by taxi than to subsidize the Greek train system.
• Old Claim: In 1992, it might have been “close to being true,” but a bit of an exaggeration.
• Modern Check: In 2012, Greek Railways cost €0.60/km per passenger; taxis cost €1.20/km alone, but with four passengers sharing, taxis could be cheaper per person than the railway.

  “Four of you share a taxi and the price per kilometre drops to about half the price per kilometre as by train.” — B (28:05)

• Big Picture: The Greek railway is expensive and underutilized, accounting for a fraction of the nation’s transport needs, and improvement attempts were underway with privatizations considered.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Greece's Entry to the Eurozone:

  “Instead of calling Odysseus…they called Goldman Sachs.” — D (02:18)

• Explaining Tax Collection Myths:

  “To claim that in 2010 the Greek didn’t collect almost 90% of tax due that year is false.” — F (15:16)

• Highlighting Productivity:

  “By this method, Germany ranks 9th most productive by worker out of the OECD countries, while Greece drops to 25th.” — A (22:14)

• On the German Bailout:

  “I have a very simple question for you, Charlotte. Why are the Germans bailing out the Greeks then and not the other way around?” — B (21:46)

• Debunking Greek Railway Narrative:

  “Well, what I did was I looked at what we knew in 2012...in the UK, for example, it cost half that in 2010.” — E (26:32)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:13 — Introduction and framing Greek myths with economic tales.
• 02:18 — Goldman Sachs and the "Trojan horse" for entering Eurozone.
• 05:09 — How the euro shielded Greece in the bond markets.
• 06:54 — "PIGS" countries and their different paths in the crisis.
• 09:39 — Why UK escaped eurozone turbulence ("the pound is the holy moly").
• 12:53 — Start of mythbusting Porsche Cayenne statistic.
• 14:32 — Tax collection myth examined.
• 18:21 — Are Greeks lazy? Labour hours and productivity.
• 22:52 — Greek suicide statistics and the austerity debate.
• 24:26 — The railway vs. taxis myth explored.
• 28:05 — The cost-per-person debate for rail vs. taxi.
• 29:36 — Greek railway privatization efforts discussed.

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Tone & Language

The episode maintains a witty, analytical, gently skeptical tone, with regular humor, light-hearted asides, and analogies that keep the economic analysis accessible.

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This episode is an essential listen (or read) for anyone wanting to separate fact from fiction about Greece’s crisis, and see how numbers can be spun or misunderstood in public debate.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to More or Less. Every week we produce a podcast, whether we're on air or not. So if you never want to miss a programme, subscribe. This week, Tim Harford presents a Greek myth special.

[B]

Hello, and welcome to this special edition of More or Less, in which we'll try to sort statistical truth from myth in Greece using new stories and gems from our archive. Can it be true that the Greek government failed to collect almost 90% of all tax due in 2010? Or that the Greeks work harder than anyone else in Europe? We'll answer those questions, amongst others, and bring you something you rarely hear in public when the state of the Eurozone is being discussed.

[C]

This story is so ridiculous.

[B]

The sound of a German laughing. But first, let me take you back very far back, because here on More or Less, we're always looking for the perfect analogy to help clarify complicated things. And the Greek economic crisis is pretty complicated. The good news is we think we've come up with exactly the right way to describe the whole sorry business as Homer's Odyssey.

[D]

And the even better news is that Charlotte MacDonald is here to help.

[A]

Yes. So where should we start?

[D]

Well, let's start with the Trojan horse.

[A]

Sure.

[D]

Yep. So the original horse, great big hollow wooden statue, and inside the Trojan horse, there's this Greek attack squad. And they are smuggled into the city of Troy.

[A]

And what has that got to do with the debt crisis?

[D]

Okay, bear with me. So this goes back to the late 1990s and the creation of the Eurozone. And the Greeks, they wanted to get into Troy. Now they want to get into the Eurozone. And to get into the walls of the Eurozone, the Greeks need to convince the European Union to that they've met various troublesome rules about inflation and their deficit and government debt and so on.

[A]

These are rules about how much a country can borrow in any given year. That kind of thing.

[D]

That kind of thing, yeah. And the trouble is, they're pretty hard to satisfy if you're an economy like Greece.

[A]

You're not suggesting that the Greeks managed to smuggle themselves into the Eurozone in a giant wooden horse?

[D]

Well, metaphorically, yeah, they kind of did. Instead of calling Odysseus the, they called Goldman Sachs. And they asked Goldman Sachs to structure this clever financial deal that put a lot of Greek borrowing off the books.

[A]

Was that illegal?

[B]

No, I think it was legal.

[D]

It was just cunning like Odysseus. And in any case, it wasn't just Goldman Sachs. It's been reported there were all kinds of tricks that the Greek government were using to make their macroeconomic statistics look nice and trim and healthy.

[A]

And when was this discovered?

[D]

In late 2009, George Papandreou came to power in Greece and he announced this bad news. The Greek deficit wasn't 3.7% of GDP, which was pretty manageable, as his predecessors had claimed. It was almost four times bigger. And that made Greece's debt look completely unsustainable too.

[A]

Didn't anybody notice?

[D]

Well, not many people it seems, which I guess is a bit like the Trojans. It always struck me the Trojans deserved a bit of the blame for the whole Trojan horse thing. I mean this wasn't actually the most subtle plan in history. And some people would say, you know, when it comes to the modern Trojan horse, the European statistics agency Eurostat could have been a bit sharper about finding out what was going on. And so perhaps should the banks who were lending all this money to Greece.

[A]

So I've got it. I think the Greeks smuggled themselves into the Eurozone inside a Trojan horse of off balance sheet accounting. And the crisis broke when people finally found out.

[D]

Exactly. So let's introduce our next character to the story. The Cyclops, the one eyed giant who trapped Odysseus men in a cave, planning to eat them for breakfast. Odysseus then stabbed the Cyclops in the eye with a red hot sharpened steak.

[B]

Which has got to hurt.

[A]

But what have you got in mind for the modern day equivalent of a blind enraged colossus?

[D]

You have to ask.

[B]

That's easy.

[D]

The international bond market, obviously. So think about how Odysseus escaped. The Cyclops, unable to see, stood by the entrance to his cave and touched each of his giant sheep as they trotted out to graze. Now Odysseus cunningly again told his men to cling to the underside of the sheep. And the Cyclops was unable to tell that the Greeks were sheltering under his livestock.

[A]

So is this analogy about countries sheltering under one currency by any chance?

[D]

You are absolutely right. It's a pretty good way to think about it. When different European countries had different currencies, investors charged much.

[A]

You mean the international bond markets?

[D]

Exactly. They charged much higher rates to the likes of Greece than they did to Germany, simply because of the risk they were taking in lending money to the Greeks instead of the Germans.

[A]

That makes sense. So given the same interest rates, you'd lend to the Germans, they're safer bet? Yeah, sure. So Greece had to pay more in interest if it wanted to attract lenders.

[D]

Exactly. And then comes the Euro. And the Euro acts like the giant sheep. So clinging on beneath it all these national governments, some of which were credit worthy and some of which were not, and yet the bond markets acted as though they were all pretty much the same.

[A]

And obviously they weren't all the same. All those reasons why you might have preferred to lend to Germany than to Greece were still there, weren't they?

[B]

Well, not all of them, but the big one was. And the big one was the risk that the Greeks wouldn't or couldn't pay back what they borrowed. But like the blind Cyclops casually touching the of his sheep, bondholders didn't seem to pay close enough attention to the fact that the risks of default hadn't gone away. They treated all Eurozone countries very similarly, at least until 2009, and they lent money to Greece almost as cheaply as they had done to Germany.

[A]

That seems incredibly stupid to treat different national governments the same just because they were all borrowing in euros. But fine, I get it. They were sheltering under the euro sheep and being only casually inspected by investors. But what happens next in the story?

[D]

Well, remember Circe?

[A]

I wouldn't go as far as saying I remember her, but I've certainly looked her up for this exercise.

[D]

Thank you. You will then have found out that Circe invited Odysseus and the Greek sailors to a banquet on her island. And as the sailors gorged themselves on the food and drink, Circe transformed them into pig. I think it's a metaphor. It's certainly evocative of what a lot of people think happened to Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, often rather impertinently called the. Well, the pigs.

[B]

The pigs.

[A]

Are you trying to say that these countries gorged themselves on cheap money?

[D]

Well, a lot of people think that certainly they had access to cheap money courtesy of the blind bond markets, and they used the money to get on with whatever they fancied getting on with. In the case of Ireland, it was a property boom. In the case of Greece, it was the Greek state running this large unacknowledged deficit.

[A]

So basically, the pig shorthand isn't very flattering.

[D]

Well, it isn't, and it's not altogether clear that it's helpful. Different things have happened to different countries. In Ireland, the national debt has suddenly ballooned because Irish banks lost an incredible amount of money. In Spain, the problem was that growth collapsed, the national debt was low, and in fact it's still not that high. But with low growth, investors are getting nervous. And then in Greece there was this long run off the books accumulation of debt.

[B]

So each case was Different.

[A]

Still, it suits the narrative to suggest a certain gluttony on the part of the pig. P I G S that is.

[B]

Well, the then Deputy Prime Minister of Greece did say we ate the money together. Although that line didn't go down too well in Greece. And anyway, the British shouldn't be too smug. The year the comment was made in 2010, the UK's budget deficit was higher than that of the Greeks.

[A]

What about the others though? Ireland, Portugal, Spain.

[B]

It was higher than any of them. The UK out pigged the lot of them. Now, I should say that after some rough times, Portugal, Ireland and Spain are now doing far better as far as bond investors are concerned. That's partly because the European Central bank has been reassuring investors that it will do whatever it takes to support their bonds. And it's partly because their economies are recovering. Both Portugal and Ireland had dreadful recessions, for instance, but in both of them the economy is growing and unemployment is falling. I can assure you the economy isn't growing in Greece. Its GDP is down about a third since 2008. That's a massive fall. But the UK never had this roller coaster ride in the bond markets like Odysseus. UK government debt escaped unscathed.

[A]

And that's because Odysseus was using a holy herb to protect him from the evil pig. Magic.

[D]

Holy moly.

[A]

Calm down, Tim.

[D]

No, no, it was a holy herb and it's called moley.

[A]

Ok, but what's the charm that's protecting the UK from this fiscal storm?

[B]

Well, there are a few things. There's no doubt that George Osborne has been committed to getting the deficit down quickly. And whatever the merits of that policy, it reassured bond market investors. But perhaps a more important explanation is the fact that the UK stayed out of the Eurozone now without opening a great big can of macroeconomics. What that means is that austerity measures in the UK don't hurt growth as much as they do in Eurozone countries. The flexible currency allows the UK to export some of the pain to others. So I think the holy herb in this case is. Has been the pound.

[A]

Okay, so Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain all got into trouble, some people say through financial gluttony. But the uk, which had the biggest deficit of all, escaped being turned into a pig. But now I'm confused, Tim. A few minutes ago you were telling me that investors were happy to lend money to Greece because it was part of the Eurozone. Now you're telling me that investors are happy to lend money to the UK because it isn't part of the Eurozone.

[D]

Well, in fairness, I did say the investors were as smart as a blind sheep fondling giant, didn't I? But I agree it is a mystery. But I think I know how to explain. It's time for another tale from the Odyssey, that of Odysseus and the Sirens.

[A]

Well, we all know this one. The Sirens had beautiful, tempting songs, but would rip sailors to pieces. Odysseus told his sailors to block their ears with wax, but had himself tied to the mast so that he could hear the siren song and yet couldn't leap overboard to his death, no matter how hard he tried.

[E]

Now, get the strongest rope on board

[F]

and lash me tightly to the mast.

[E]

Bind me in coils of rope.

[C]

Sir, we wouldn't dream of roping you

[B]

like a wild horse.

[E]

And then row and row and row. Dig into the waves as if you were drunk and digging for gold. And whatever I say, however much I

[F]

scream or threaten or plead, ignore every word.

[D]

It turns out that the story of the Sirens is a classic in economic theory, and it represents the idea that sometimes you can gain an advantage from tying your own hands. It's called a commitment strategy, and this is one of the things that investors liked about the euro being a part of it means. Greece, for example, can't devalue its debt by printing money, no matter how tempting that option becomes.

[A]

But now there's a downside.

[D]

There is indeed a downside. These commitment strategies are all great until you reach a situation where you really, really need to break your commitment. At that point, you're stuffed. You remember later in the Odyssey when Odysseus is sucked into the gigantic whirlpool of Charybdis.

[A]

I do indeed

[C]

keep this stomach we're being sucked in.

[E]

I can spell that breath.

[D]

He saved himself by leaping off a raft and grabbing onto a fig tree. And all I'm saying is, well, it's a good job he wasn't tied to any masts at the time.

[A]

So the Greeks tied themselves to the euro. It helped them for quite a few years, but now it's causing them terrible problems. Tell me, how does the Odyssey end?

[D]

Well, after 10 years of aimless wandering around and random horrors, the story ends with a bloody massacre of a greedy bunch of ne' er do wells.

[A]

Ok, well, let's hope that this story ends better.

[D]

Yeah, let's hope so, Charlotte.

[B]

Thank you. Time for another Greek myth, but a more modern one. Rightly or wrongly, the Greeks have a reputation as profligate tax dodgers and tax dodgers with a penchant for luxury cars like Porsche Cayennes, these cars will cost you around £50,000, over $60,000. Time for Wesley Stevenson to explain.

[E]

A number of stories that fit the narrative of Greece being a basket case have been circulating, including this one.

[B]

There are more Porsche Cayennes registered in Greece than taxpayers declaring an income of €50,000 or more.

[E]

The original claim was made by someone who you think would be a reliable source, an economic advisor to the former Prime Minister of Greece, a man called Professor Heracles Polemarchus. But when I asked him, he said his remark was casual. And he said it was based on what had been circulating in policy circles in Greece a few years back. And he didn't really have much to back it up. He told me the only hard fact he was aware of was that the per capita number of Porsches in the city of Larissa was one for every two and a half thousand, which was twice the amount of Porsche Cayennes in the OECD countries.

[B]

But that doesn't back up his original assertion. Let's have a look at the facts. In 2010, there were 311,420 people with declared incomes of over €50,000. That's about $65,000 paying tax in Greece.

[E]

Armed with this fact, I rang a really nice man called Lucas Kunze at Porsche, and this was his reaction to our numbers.

[C]

This story is so ridiculous.

[E]

So I asked him exactly how many Porsche Cayennes had been sold in Greece

[C]

since the start of the Cayenne. In 2003, we sold around 1,500 Cayennes,

[E]

which is not very much like 311,428.

[C]

Not even 1%.

[B]

Okay, so the Cayenne thing can be filed as another Greek myth, but there was a broader implication here that the Greeks don't pay tax. That brings us to another statistic. In 2010, 89.5% of taxes went uncollected in Greece. Let me Repeat that. In 2010, 89.5% of taxes went uncollected. That astonishing claim was spread around by social media after the number appeared in the Washington Post. The equivalent figure in Germany, by the way, was 2.3%. But can the number possibly be true? David Rhodes has been looking into this for us. So, David, is it true?

[F]

Tim, let me start with a classic more or less answer. The answer is yes and no. To claim that in 2010 the Greek didn't collect almost 90% of tax due that year is false. People making that claim have simply misunderstood the figure. It first appeared in A chart in the Washington Post, and they described it as the uncollected tax receipts as a percentage of total receipts in 2010. A bit confusing and not quite right either. The 89.5% figure comes from the OECD and what it actually relates to is the amount of historical tax debt that remains uncollected by the Greek authorities as of 2010. That's debt built up over a number of years and not the taxes that were solely due in 2010. That is the key difference.

[B]

It still doesn't sound good, though.

[F]

No, it's not, but it's not as bad as it seems. It's all down to bookkeeping and Greece's reluctance to write off old debt. As Richard Murphy from Tax Research UK

[G]

explained to me, sensible tax authorities take a view on this issue every year and say, well, we've got a certain proportion of our debt that isn't going to be paid, let's write it off. Whereas Greece is recording this extraordinarily large number, but it's just because they hadn't bothered to write off the old balances. This is an accounting anomaly. So there's a massive tax collection problem in Greece, but it is certainly not 89.5% of the tax due in a year.

[B]

So do we know how much tax the Greeks actually did collect in 2010?

[F]

Yes, we do. Around 70 billion euros. Which means taxation made up 34% of Greece's overall GDP figure for 2010. That's below the EU average of 39%, though the latest figures for 2013 show that figure has fallen to 61 billion euros. Though that's got a lot to do with the fact that Greece's economy has been shrinking and that there are now fewer people working.

[B]

So is it fair to conclude that the Greeks aren't very good at collecting tax?

[F]

Well, yes, I think we can, but there is a problem being precise, because tax isn't Greece's only problem. Statistics are also a problem.

[B]

Well, not just in Greece, but. What do you mean?

[F]

Well, the OECD and others have tried to look at how efficient the Greeks are at collecting tax, but for most years, we simply have no idea, as the Greeks didn't submit any numbers. And then there's the shadow economy.

[B]

Oh, yes, the builders doing jobs, cash in hand, restaurants and bars not declaring income, that kind of thing.

[F]

Yeah, but it's not just builders and bar staff, it's also doctors and even surgeons doing operations, cash in hand. Now, there's been a number of recent academic studies that suggest Greece is missing out on between 20 to 30 billion euros of tax each year. Now that would make quite a difference to their financial position if the Greeks could collect it. Richard Murphy has studied the size of the black economy across Europe.

[G]

Greece has a problem. It's not as bad as some European countries. Bulgaria and Romania are worse. Italy is up there alongside it. But it is an issue which has clearly contributed to the current Greek crisis.

[B]

Now, the Greeks might well admit that taxpaying isn't their strongest suit, but what they would surely disagree with is any suggestion that they're lazy. Indeed, the Greeks often say that they are the hardest working people in Europe. Is that true? Charlotte MacDonald has been looking at the figures.

[A]

If you look at the average annual hours worked by each worker, the Greeks seem actually very hard working. That's according to figures from the OECD, which has 34 members, 15 of which are in Europe. It estimated that last year the average Greek worker toiled away for more than 2,000 hours, which is more than any other worker in Europe and lagging behind only Mexico, Costa Rica and South Korea. On the other hand, the average German worker, normally thought of as the very epitome of industriousness, only manages 1371 fewer than any other OECD country for which there is data. This means the average Greek is working 40% longer.

[B]

So there you have it. The Germans are lazy and the Greeks put the most hours in. Although is that the full picture, Charlotte? I suspect not.

[A]

Yeah, obviously you're right. I couldn't help but wonder if there was more to this. So I contacted the OECD and spoke to Pascal Mariana, who is a labour market statistician.

[B]

What explains the difference between Ausburg in Greece and in Germany? It's the fact that the Greek labour market is composed of a large number of people working who are self employed. Farmers in agriculture and on the other hand, shopkeepers for example, working long hours.

[A]

Now the reason this high number of self employed makes the difference is that these people tend to work more than those who have specified hours of work in a contract with an employer.

[B]

But I mean this isn't some kind of statistical illusion, right? The Greeks are actually working longer hours.

[A]

Yeah, they are working longer. And there's something else that's pulling down the German average.

[B]

In Germany, the share of employees working part time is quite high.

[A]

So the fact their labour markets are structured differently makes it hard to compare like with like. But if you accounted for these factors, stripping away part time and self employed people and look just at full time salaried workers.

[B]

Let me guess The Germans work harder than the Greeks.

[A]

Well, actually, no. On this basis the German average has gone up while the Greeks has come down. But the Greeks are still working more hours than the Germans. And this is because the Germans take more holiday and sickness leave, on average four weeks more than the Greeks.

[B]

But hang on, this part time worker thing has got me thinking. Let's say you've got a person who doesn't want to work full time. Maybe they have young children, maybe they're getting old, whatever. If part time work is available and it's widely available in Germany, they might well take it. And if it's not available, they won't work at all.

[A]

That sort of scenario might mean that there's more work going on in total in Germany, but fewer hours per worker. And to figure that out you'd need to look not at hours per worker, but at hours per adult citizen of working age, including the unemployed, people in early retirement, stay at home, parents and so on.

[B]

If only we had those numbers.

[A]

I took the liberty of asking Pascal Mariana about this and he says that even on this hours per adult measure, the Greeks still beat Germany, but the difference is marginal.

[B]

I have a very simple question for you, Charlotte. Why are the Germans bailing out the Greeks then and not the other way around?

[A]

Well, you would think that is a good question, but what you really should be asking is what are all those long hours actually producing? So I looked at the amount earned per hour in both countries and, well, by this method, Germany ranks 9th most productive by worker out of the OECD countries, while Greece drops to 25th.

[B]

Now we have to say that all of these numbers must come with a health warning. They're collected by individual national statistical authorities who have their own methods of collecting and collating information. And as we've heard, Greece's National Statistics Authority has not covered itself in glory recently. Well, thank you, Charlotte. If there's a number you'd like us to investigate, then email us at more or lessbc.co.uk Vincent Savage did just that, having read something in the UK's Guardian newspaper.

[G]

In amongst all the other mind boggling

[E]

figures relating to the financial crisis in Greece, the following quote appeared in the

[G]

Guardian Online on 5th July 2015.

[E]

In the last five years, more than

[G]

10,000 Greeks have committed suicide.

[B]

The figure came from a woman that the Guardian describes as an unemployed mother of two and a staunch supporter of Syriza. But is she right? Professor Charles Branistow from the University of Pennsylvania has studied the link between austerity and suicides. In Greece by analyzing data from the past three decades.

[D]

For our 30 years, we recorded or were sent a total of 11,500 suicides from 1983 to 2012. That's about 400 suicides a year. You can add that up for those five years and see what sort of numbers you get. Perhaps 2000 suicides might be a more reasonable estimate.

[B]

What we don't know is how many suicides there have been since 2012. The data haven't been published, but we can have a guess. The highest number of suicides in a single month identified in Professor Brannistow's study was 64. So if we assume that every month in the past five years has been that bad, that would equate to just over 3,800 suicides, nowhere near 10,000. Still, the number of suicides has been rising, and that is cause for concern. Before we go, there is time for one more Greek myth, or what appears to be a myth. It's one we've looked at before on more or less, and it relates to the Greek railways. Here's Wesley Stevenson to explain.

[E]

The Greek railways do seem to crop up a lot in the story of how the Greek nation came to be in its current predicament. And one claim in particular, which I first examined back in 2012, and that is that the Greek railways are so expensive to run, it would be cheaper to send the passengers by taxi. And it was first made by Stefanos Manos when he was finance minister in Greece way back in 1992.

[B]

It is an extraordinary thing for a finance minister to admit.

[E]

Yeah. And he'd just been sworn in, but he was speaking in parliament in support of the Maastricht Treaty, and he was emphasizing what he saw as the need to cut back the size of the public sector. And when I spoke to him back in 2012, he told me why he said it.

[C]

I knew the number of passengers, and I made a very brief estimate of what it would cost to send them from Athens to the north of Greece. And I decided that it was quite obvious that it would be cheaper to send them there by taxi than by train. And I still feel that it still holds true. In fact, it might be even worse these days.

[E]

It's been hard. In fact, it's been impossible to find the figures for 1992 to check out whether this is correct. But rail experts have told me they think it was probably close to being true in 1992, but a bit of an exaggeration.

[B]

And Stefanos Manos said he thinks it's probably still true in 2012.

[E]

Yes. And he wasn't the only one, was he?

[C]

Right.

[E]

Well, what I did was I looked at what we knew in 2012 and that was that the latest figures showed that the two parts of the Greek railway were together making a loss of just over a billion euros. That's $1.3 billion. From that we can work out how much was being spent on every kilometer each passenger traveled that year. And the latest data available at the time was that passengers were traveling 1.8 billion kilometers every year. So it means it was costing the Greek Railways €60 cents. That's 75 US cents for every kilometer each of its passengers traveled. And that's quite a lot. In the UK, for example, it cost half that in 2010.

[B]

OK, so all we need to know now is what it costs to get around by cab.

[E]

Yeah, and I found a tame cab driver, Greg Mosaidis. He could tell me that he's a cab driver in Thessaloniki. Oh, hello, Is that Greg?

[C]

Yes, Greg speaking.

[E]

Can you tell me how much it would be to take a taxi from Thessalonica to Athens?

[C]

It costs €700.

[E]

€700. And how far is it, Gino?

[C]

It is 520 kilometers and it takes about five hours.

[E]

Okay, that's brilliant. Well, thank you very much for that.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

So that's a euro 20 cents per kilometre. About $1.55. That's more than double the amount being paid to send people by train. So Manos was wrong.

[E]

Yes. We did check Greg's prices with a few other cab firms to make sure he wasn't unusually expensive. And he's about average. So it does look like another Greek myth.

[B]

Although. Are you sure, Wes? Because loyal listeners will no doubt wish to point out that the figures assume you take a taxi by yourself.

[E]

Ah, yes.

[C]

Hello.

[E]

Hi there, Greg. It's Wesley here. I've got another quote.

[C]

Yes, please.

[E]

You said it would be €700 to travel from Thessaloniki to Athens. What would happen if we had four passengers?

[C]

That would be €700.

[E]

And what if we were to have a return journey? How much would it be then? If the cab was full, both ways.

[C]

If you go directly to Athens and. But that would be €800.

[E]

That's brilliant. Thank you.

[B]

So four of you share a taxi and the price per kilometre drops to about half the price per kilometre as by train.

[D]

And if the taxi has a return

[B]

fare, it's cheaper still. So perhaps not quite a myth after all. But are we in danger of missing the bigger picture wares?

[D]

It looks like The Greek railway is

[B]

quite expensive to operate and the whole system was in a pretty awful mess.

[E]

I think that's right. Panos Prevadoras is a professor of transport engineering at the University of Hawaii.

[B]

Hang on, you're discussing the Greek rail network with a bloke in Hawaii?

[E]

Yeah, of course, he's an expert in these sorts of things, so it seemed right. He paints a pretty bleak picture of the Greek railway.

[F]

Over $13 billion has been pumped in in the last 15, 16 years. In terms of passenger, long distance rail has 2.7% of the share. And in terms of freight, it's truly a joke, really, because it's 0.08% of the freight. So basically it carries no freight to speak of. So the costs are staggering. And also the condition of the system is highly variable. The majority of the system is near dilapidated.

[E]

Whilst closing the railway down and sending everyone by cab isn't really a viable option, there are other ways in which the government can save money. By 2012, it had already begun closing lines, mothballing some rolling stock and running fewer services. And since then, it's also put the Greek train operator up for sale, as well as the company which services and repairs the trains.

[B]

Well, that's handy. How much did the sale raise?

[E]

They haven't been sold, but not because of a lack of interest. Despite having multiple bidders for both companies, the new government said in January that they were reviewing the policy of privatisation. And as far as we know, it's still under review.

[B]

Well, thank you, Wes, and thank you for listening. That is all we have time for on our very own Greek Odyssey. Our email address is more or lessbc.co.uk. our website, including free downloads of the 10 Minute World Service version we do all year round, is BBC.co.uk more or less.

[D]

That edition of More or Less was presented by Tim Harford and produced by me, Joe Kent.