The numbers quoted in the Greek article seem to be a little bit off. He was talking about all the poor neighborhoods, did not mention anything about Kolonaki(Athens Recoleta) or Glyfada (Athens Palermo), these areas are the areas mostly bought by Golden Visa people, many wealthy people fled to Athens from middle east, from Turkey, Syria, Greece is the only country they feel comfortable, they like the identical food, they even look similar, feel like home. Many still have business in middle east, they just buy real estate in Greece to get residency and run away from their countries if something is wrong. I have met many turks in US who know the neighborhoods in Athens well.
I think one of the reasons for Greece to have slow recovery is that Greece does not have the power to print money, EU decides how much Euro Greeks can have, that screws the Greeks but keeps the inflation low for them. I have been visiting Athens in the past 3 years, and 5 times last year. Athens does not look anything like Buenos Aires in 2001. The restaurants are full, Greeks love to eat, drink and smoke outside. The average Greeks make more and have higher living standard than Argentines for sure. Spain is 1-2 notches higher than Argentina and Greece is at least 1 notch above Argentina in terms of pretty much everything. But one thing Argentines do better than Greeks is that Argentines save more for rainy days, they have seen bad days, they do not panic when high inflation comes, they like to travel, they are not big saving people but they save more than Greeks. Greeks have good medical cares and social support system, probably they worry less and spend when they have something in their pockets.
