Why don't construction prices go down?

And what else happened in 2020? And who was suddenly able to take out new loans at around 0% instead of 35%? It is not about Greece having done everything right before the debt crisis, but rather that the bailout plan did not help Greece but caused even more harm. It would have been enough to limit new debt, especially to restrict the areas of expenditure.

--
However, the interest can be reinvested. What it actually comes down to is that these only incur if one has previously provided for

schools, highways

among others

infrastructure measures

. The longer necessary investments are postponed, the more expensive it becomes. If you then also calculate the macroeconomic damage from the opportunity costs of delayed action, the mentioned 3.5% are peanuts.

Regarding the increase in construction costs since 2015, how much of it is due to wage increases, how much to material costs, and how much profit increase have entrepreneurs taken? Has anyone ever made this breakdown (I'm too lazy to figure it out myself on a Sunday).

According to Destatis, the average wage in the main construction industry has increased by about 51% since 2012 (additional drivers such as surcharges for special construction site burdens also apply). It looks similar for material prices (although not quite as high and depending on the material).
Not to forget are also the increased requirements (Energy Saving Ordinance/Building Energy Act), which I cannot quantify.
Regarding the margin of construction companies, one has to say that it is actually lower today than in 2015. At the peak before the interest rate turnaround, margins were naturally high – you could charge any price. Meanwhile, one is back to baking small rolls. The developer starts with zero margin in real construction operations and partly earns money "only" by tapping into subsidies. The standard margin is 12-20% – before taxes, risks, business operations, etc.

In the end, the distribution (based on my professional experience with developers/builders) – relative to today compared to 2015 – I estimate roughly as
40% wages
40% material (including energy costs)
20% statutory requirements.

The interest can be reinvested.

But not by the state.

It would have been enough to limit the new debt, especially by restricting the areas of expenditure.

No. Greece was bankrupt. Like a private person. If the income is not enough to pay the interest, it doesn't help to restrict other expenses (which anyway cannot be paid). I recommend Wikipedia. There is a nice - but long and dry - entry on this. Mismanagement, bloated administrative apparatus, excessive wage increases, corruption, tax avoidance

as if you would recommend a private person to just keep accumulating more debt to live and waste money

First of all, a state is not a private person (nor a company) and is therefore subject to completely different rules of budgeting. Secondly, nobody is talking about wasting.

No. Greece was bankrupt. Like a private person. If income is not enough to pay the interest, it doesn't help to restrict other expenses (which anyway cannot be paid). I recommend Wikipedia to you. There is a nice - but long and dry - entry on it. Mismanagement, bloated bureaucracy, excessive wage increases, corruption, tax avoidance

We are talking past each other, again it is not about what was done before the debt cut in Greece but what was done afterwards by the rest of the EU led by Germany.

Surpluses on one side mean on the other side that other countries are simply not capable of producing like that themselves.

Germany wouldn’t be either if the euro were not kept soft by other euro members. Normally, such surpluses constantly lead to revaluations. It is an artificial—if you will, currency subsidy—that we have had since the introduction of the euro.

I could also pull up statistics like these, that the unemployment rate is not that high. It was just reported incorrectly before,

A logical fallacy. You cannot infer the reported unemployed from the labor force participation rate. Maybe now women are working who used to stay at home because wages have fallen and they have to. Therefore, they were not counted as unemployed before.

It sounds as if you were talking to a private individual

No. States are something completely different from individual private persons. They are even something different from the collection of all private individuals in the private economic sector. States have an assumed infinite life expectancy without retirement, and they usually have their own currency in which they can never become insolvent. So you obviously misunderstood me at this point.

Greece was no different.

Which learned the hard way that by entering the euro, it is indebting itself in a foreign currency and the above does not apply if the ECB does not want it to.

Greece had already been in a recession since 2008. So the debt cut and the new budgeting are not the drivers for the downturn

No, that is the 2008 financial crisis, which is considered the greatest crisis in history so far and through which almost all countries looked like this. At this point, it was neither the Greeks themselves nor the measures for dismantling and rebuilding.

And also after a consolidation phase was then able to reap the fruits of good policy since 2020.

Sorry, when someone has fallen to the ground, getting up is not the result of good policy but an inevitable consequence of having survived. I only recognize good policy when a good option has been chosen from several possibilities, not when the only option has simply not been prevented.

Thanks by the way for your figures on the construction industry in Germany and thus the answer to my question.

We are talking past each other, again it's not about what was done before the Greek debt cut but afterwards by the rest of the EU led by DE

Yes, because one depends on the other. Or should Greece have been rescued without conditions? What would have changed then? Yes, what was done was good. And it was good for the Greeks and still is today. I stick to the example of the private person. Yes, there are differences. But basically the mechanisms are the same. You cannot spend more than you can afford (explicitly: can afford). P.S. The people's life satisfaction has improved significantly since 2012 (unfortunately Covid also caused a significant setback there). So it can't be all that bad if even the people see the positive development and feel comfortable with it.