Could never happen here, right?
[3]
How do you think the Greeks felt in 2009?
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After 40 years of almost straight-line growth in incomes, Greeks have seen those gains destroyed in the short space of the last few years.
The simple story, as WaPo reports, [5] is that there was a big jump for everybody after the junta was pushed out in 1974, a big stagnation from the mid-80s to the mid-90s, an even bigger jump, especially for the rich, after that, and then a big crash that's erased 30 years of gains—or more.
Greece's rich have done a little better than the rest, with their real disposable incomes "only" falling to 1985 levels. But its poor have fallen even further, all the way back to where they were in 1980.
That's why it's no exaggeration to say that Greece really does have a humanitarian crisis on its hands.
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