[_delirium]

The 1996-2006 growth is actually part of the disagreement as well: a lot of Greeks feel ambivalent at best about it, because they feel it went disproportionately to a relatively small elite (I don't have the numbers on whether that's true). Total GDP went up significantly from 1996 to 2006, but the feeling is that it went mainly to the top 25%, with a good portion going to the top 10%. I believe (though I'd have to look it up) that real income of the bottom 50% was flat or declining over that period, which would mean that fully half the country doesn't perceive 1996-2006 as a positive economic period at all.

On the inflationary side, Zimbabwe is an obvious example (with Weimar Germany) of the levels you don't want to go to, but the 1970s Italian/Greek levels of circa 30% annual inflation (with a sort of punctuated equilibrium yearly distribution, i.e. 5-10% most years and 1000% once a decade) aren't quite the same as circa 30,000% annual inflation. It has a lot of effects, some negative, some positive, but is a different sort of beast.