Facts that reconcile this article with what we already know:
1. The Greek labour market is inefficient. That is why so many people work in small (inefficient) shops. Closed shop regulation for many professions lock people out of high wage occupations. Next to Portugal's 28% high school graduation rate [1] Greece's recent progress (<50% of 25-64 year olds completing high school in 1997 versus 61% today [2]) is valiant but the leaves an uneducated, unproductive generation untouched. It also doesn't account for Greeks' shorter working years.
2. Doing business is tough. Here is an anecdote from a financial commentator in Athens:
"My friend explained that the owner of the bookstore/café couldn’t get a license to provide coffee. She had tried to just buy a coffee machine and give the coffee away for free, thinking that lingering patrons would boost book sales. However, giving away coffee was illegal as well. Instead, the owner had to strike a deal with a bar across the street, whereby they make the coffee and the waitress spends all day shuttling between the bar and the bookstore/café. My friend also explained to me that books could not be purchased at the bookstore, as it was after 18h and it is illegal to sell books in Greece beyond that hour. I was in a bookstore/café that could neither sell books nor make coffee." [3]
3. The government used cheap loans not for infrastructure or reform, but to pay public servants and build a military.
4. The government lied about its finances and is depravedly corrupt.
"books could not be purchased at the bookstore, as it was after 18h and it is illegal to sell books in Greece beyond that hour. I was in a bookstore/café that could neither sell books nor make coffee."
Unreal.
Note that it wasn't that the store was somehow incompetent, it's that doing something as simple & normal as selling a book after 6PM is illegal. Giving away brewed-in-house coffee is illegal. I'm having trouble articulating how profoundly outrageous this is, how self-destructive a country is which not only enacts such regulations but, it seems, tolerates it.
If mere sale of a book is prohibited during any hours (much less perfectly reasonable & normal hours), outsiders will find it hard to extend sympathy and aid to a country so keen on destroying its own economy via absurd legislation and citizens so willing to comply. I'm glad to help the needy, but that stops quick when the recipient won't quit obviously self-destructive behavior.
the anecdote about the bookstore is very weird. Bookstores in Greece are open (and selling) until 9pm, not before 6pm as in the anecdote, I’m not sure what’s up with that. Airport bookstores are often open (and selling) 24 hours/day. I live in Greece and after seeing this article spread all over the internet, went to a local bookstore last night just to check. The bookstore owner looked at me like I was out of my mind. “Would I be sitting here burning the lights and paying my employee if I couldn’t sell books? That makes no sense.” So, you know, there’s that…. (And I’ve personally bought books late into the night in many, many parts of Greece.) Don’t let that affect how you interpret such anecdotes, of course. Even if something is wrong, if it sounds correct, we might as well treat it as such, right? I think that’s how this works….
It seems to me, too, like an extraordinary story, I'd like to see more context on this supposed ban on bookselling in the evening.
1. The Greek labour market is inefficient. That is why so many people work in small (inefficient) shops. Closed shop regulation for many professions lock people out of high wage occupations. Next to Portugal's 28% high school graduation rate [1] Greece's recent progress (<50% of 25-64 year olds completing high school in 1997 versus 61% today [2]) is valiant but the leaves an uneducated, unproductive generation untouched. It also doesn't account for Greeks' shorter working years.
2. Doing business is tough. Here is an anecdote from a financial commentator in Athens:
"My friend explained that the owner of the bookstore/café couldn’t get a license to provide coffee. She had tried to just buy a coffee machine and give the coffee away for free, thinking that lingering patrons would boost book sales. However, giving away coffee was illegal as well. Instead, the owner had to strike a deal with a bar across the street, whereby they make the coffee and the waitress spends all day shuttling between the bar and the bookstore/café. My friend also explained to me that books could not be purchased at the bookstore, as it was after 18h and it is illegal to sell books in Greece beyond that hour. I was in a bookstore/café that could neither sell books nor make coffee." [3]
3. The government used cheap loans not for infrastructure or reform, but to pay public servants and build a military.
4. The government lied about its finances and is depravedly corrupt.
[1] http://m.upi.com/m/story/UPI-16361301069117/
[2] http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/21/48657344.pdf
[3] http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/36085/