亲身体验告诉我希腊也许永远无法复苏

    从2010年，也就是希腊债务危机爆发后的那一年起，我和家人每年都会到希腊去。

    我们到希腊半是工作半是度假。作为布鲁金斯学会前董事总经理，我协助启动并指导了该学会的希腊危机研究项目，其中为希腊经济如何恢复竞争力提出了一些建议。

    我是美籍希腊人，在家里说希腊语，但小时候几乎没有到过希腊。我想让自己的孩子们接触到希腊的历史和文化，并感受到希腊人的热情。

    过去五年来，我们发现希腊人的生活受到了越来越大的影响，比如雅典的店铺关门歇业，许多人失去工作，政府削减养老金，企业无法获得资金，中东和北非移民带来的问题加剧等。

    我们还看到了街头的游行示威和希腊议员们的争执。两年前，时任希腊财政部长的雅尼斯•斯托尔纳拉斯带我看了他办公室窗户上的弹孔。现在，斯托尔纳拉斯是希腊央行行长，他与总理阿莱克斯•齐普拉斯意见向左也是公开的事实。

    但我们也看到希腊取得了一些重大成功，比如现代化的雅典新卫城博物馆。我的一位美国旅游达人朋友把这座熠熠生辉的建筑称为他参观过的最好的博物馆。它是希腊公共设施中不可多得的明星建筑。

    有一次，我和妻子帮助安排了100名朋友到希腊伯罗奔尼撒半岛西部的科斯塔纳瓦里诺度假区旅游。这个度假区的设计和施工都非常精细。伯罗奔尼撒半岛的卡拉马塔地区保留了一些希腊最重要、也是最人迹罕至的古迹，更不用说那里美丽的自然景观和真正的农家饭。科斯塔纳瓦里诺品位上乘而雅致，也是希腊需要的那种大型旅游度假区。

    在希腊，我们出行时从未遇到不便或延误。这曾经是希腊的一个普遍问题。给我们制造麻烦的只有美洲或欧洲航空公司，比如美国联合航空、加拿大航空、达美航空、法国航空和德国汉莎航空，它们总会带来这样或那样让人头疼的问题。希腊的爱琴海航空或奧林匹克航空却不这样；此外，我们在希腊坐了无数次渡船和公交车，也没有出现问题。偶尔我们会遇到过分殷勤或态度冷淡的出租车司机、酒店前台或者渡船搬运工。但总的来说，热情好客的文化依然是主流。

    尽管有这些成功之处，但今年希腊危机的影响还是扑面而来。在酒店前台、出租车司机、餐馆老板和政界人士的脸上都能看到真正的沮丧和忧虑，这让我们意识到现代工业社会真的会遭遇衰退。“比尔先生，我们今后会怎么样？美国能令我们不受制于欧洲吗？”

    六年来，金融动荡始终贯穿着希腊经济，最明显的表现就是ATM机前总是大排长龙。在这六年中，希腊经济萎缩了近30%；三分之一的希腊人失业；在25岁以下的希腊人中，待业者占六成。

    今年，我的孩子们第一次看到了希腊共产党集会，到处都是红旗飘舞。尽管是和平集会，但它告诉人们，经济低迷会让民众更支持某些观点，而（据我愚见）这些观点只会让希腊的境遇变得更糟。热血集会的场面让孩子们感到很开心，但我却笑不出来。

    希腊当然要承担很大一部分责任。雅典一家餐厅的老板对我说：“我们选了一群笨蛋来治理国家。”在希腊，有太多对公众福祉贡献微乎其微的公务员。这就造成了预算问题，主要是因为希腊政府的税收一直不足以支付那么多的工资和养老金。

    但这也是个竞争力问题。希腊既需要为国内企业解除过多条条框框的束缚，还需要允许后者进行研发投资。希腊需要改革大学和研究机构，允许它们构建一个更善于创新和创业的社会。

    更糟糕的是，欧洲也是希腊问题的直接成因之一。欧盟的着眼点一直在希腊的预算赤字上，而不是其竞争力基石上。现在，在欧洲的作用下，希腊处于倒退边缘，民众把拯救经济的希望寄托在政府身上。无论他们是否愿意留在欧盟，我还没有发现有哪个希腊人相信欧洲其他国家想帮助希腊重振经济，降低失业率并提高竞争力。他们都直截了当地指出，欧盟只想让希腊遵守欧元区的预算规定。

    My family and I started traveling annually to Greece in 2010, the year after the crisis began.

    Our visits mixed business and pleasure. As the former managing director of the Brookings Institution, I helped launch and supervise a Brookings study of the crisis, including recommendations for how to return competitiveness to the Greek economy.

    As a Greek American who spoke the language at home, but who rarely visited here as a kid, I wanted my own children to be exposed to the country’s history and culture and hospitality.

    Over these last five years, we’ve seen the growing impact on the lives of real people — shuttered stores in Athens, tales of people losing their jobs, pension cuts, businesses unable to find financing, tensions with middle eastern and north African immigrants, etc.

    We’ve also witnessed our share of public protests, and parliamentary debates. Two years ago, the then-finance minister, YannisStournaras, showed me the bullet hole in his office window. He’s now the Governor of the Bank of Greece, and in open disagreement with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

    We’ve also witnessed sparkling successes. On the top of any tourist bucket list: the modern, gleaming new Acropolis museum. One well-traveled American friend described it as the best museum he’s ever visited … ever. It is a rare shining star in Greece of public sector success.

    And, on this trip, my wife and I helped organize travel for 100 friends to the exquisitely designed and implemented Costa Navarino resort in the western Peloponnese. The Kalamata region of Greece is home to some of the country’s most important and least explored antiquities, not to mention beautiful natural wonders and true farm-to-table dining. Costa Navarino is tasteful and elegant, and also the kind of large-scale tourist resort that Greece needs.

    In our annual visits here, we never once have had a travel inconvenience or delay within the country – once standard issue in Greece. Our only troubles have been on U.S. or European carriers: United Airlines, Air Canada, Delta DAL 0.19% , Air France AF 0.44% , Lufthansa , each caused one headache or another. But not so for Aegean or Olympic or the countless ferries and buses we’ve taken. One still meets an occasional officious or gruff taxi driver, hotel clerk, or ferry porter. But by and large, the hospitality culture dominates.

    Despite those successes, this year the crisis came home directly. The look of real frustration and fear in the faces of hotel clerks, cab drivers, restaurant owners, and politicians remind us that modern, industrial societies can experience true depression. “Mr. Bill, what will happen to us? Will America save us from Europe?”

    The long lines at ATMs are only the most noticeable tremor of financial instability that has been coursing through the economy for six years. In that period, the Greek economy has declined by nearly 30%, with one out of three Greeks out of work, and six out of ten Greeks under 25 in search of a job.

    This year, my kids got to see their first-ever Communist Party rally — red flags everywhere, and while peaceful, it was a reminder that economic distress fuels support for views that (in my humble opinion) will only lead to further misery for the country. The kids were amused. I was not.

    Greece certainly bears much of the blame. “We have chosen to be governed by fools,” one Athenian restaurant owner told me. It is a country with too many public employees who deliver too little public benefit. That’s a budgetary issue – largely because it has not been able to generate enough tax revenue to pay those salaries and pensions.

    But it’s also a competitiveness issue. Greeks need to both free up their companies from excessive red-tape, and also allow their companies to invest in research and development. They need to reform their universities and research institutes, allowing them to build a more innovative, and entrepreneurial society.

    Worse still, Europe has directly contributed to the problem. The EU has focused only on Greece’s budget deficits, and not on the building blocks of competitiveness. Now, with Europe’s help, the country is on the verge of moving backwards, of seeing the Greek state as the salvation of economic malaise. Whether or not Greeks favor staying in the EU, I have not met one Greek who believes that European partners care about restoring growth, alleviating unemployment, or building a more competitive Greece. They rightly point out that the EU simply want Greece to follow the Eurozone’s budget rules.