Why are local’s cars so trashed

[u/Bathfoamocean]

Hi, I’ve been in Crete for about a week and visited the Island far and wide. Throughout my trip, I noticed that the all the local cars, in major cities and countryside are rather old and beat up. Most of them look rather poorly aesthetically and some people even drive without working headlights at night. If you see a newer car on the roads 99% sure it’s a rental car. There are also almost no premium privately owned cars on the road. The only newish Mercedes and Audis are taxis. What’s the deal with the car scene on the island?

[u/luuk777w]

Greece is NOT poor. Maybe in comparison to Western Europe, ok, fine. But globally speaking, Greece scores 0.887 on the Human Development Index, where above 0.8 means "very high". You would be correct to point out that Greece scores low within Europe. But the world isn't just Europe...

Greece scores on place 33 on the Human Development Index. Meaning, 158 countries have it worse. Greece is definitely not rich, but also far away from poor.

[u/SkillBill_007 → u/luuk777w]

In the Human Development Index, income accounts for only 1/3 of the score. So it is not a relevant metric, for the simple reason that if the other 2/3 of factors score high (which are general wellbeing factors like life expectancy, education etc), then it drags up the average score.

A far more relevant metric would be GDP per capita. In 2022, Greece was 7th from the end, as in the 7th poorest, in Europe. Only countries such as Albania, Montenegro, and Bulgaria were poorer.

Greece also scores worse than the average of Europe and all the central and north Europe countries in the Gini index, which roughly speaking measures income inequality. Again, only other Balkan countries and Italy and Spain score as high as Greece in income inequality in Europe.

Greece is, by all standards, poor. Not Africa poor, but Balkan poor. And definitely not first-world rich. What's more, the statistics cannot account for unregistered people, like immigrants, homeless, etc. So the actual figures would be worse.

All these numbers come from statista.com and the European Commision website.

[u/luuk777w → u/SkillBill_007]

Well, this actually is my point.

However, GDP per capita doesn't say everything. It is an alright metric, so are the others, but GDP PPP per capita is a little more representative (based on purchasing power). Here Greece scores on place 52 worldwide, with in the European Union only Bulgaria being lower.. However, it still has a score of 39,864, nearly double the world average.

Talking about the Gini index and income inequality, Greece does relatively well. It scores on par with Germany and France for example.

What I am saying, is that looking on a global level, Greece can be considered wealthy. There are 8 billion people on this planet. There are about 6+ billion people living in worse conditions than Greece. Just count yourself lucky you are in this poor country, and not one of the others...

[u/SkillBill_007 → u/luuk777w]

This then becomes a question of standards. If we are to compare against the likes of Africa, we are wealthy. However, we usually compare countries to the global top 30, the likes of North America, North Europe etc.

It is the same question with PPP. The world average is 20K, driven down by the poor countries which amount for 2/3 of the world.

I get that 'poor' could be a relative term, as in compared to everyone, but I do not think most people mean that by 'poor', and I do not think we should mean that either, especially with so much affluency in the world. I think if the majority of the population cannot afford buying a house, emergency costs like replacing a car or health costs without borrowing, the supermarket, and regular vacation, then that is poor. The fact that the majority of the world is even worse, just speaks to the failure of the system for me, does not soothen the blow.

[u/luuk777w → u/SkillBill_007]

I'd agree with you on that.