Greece: More Craziness
Picture this: you have a spouse with a spending problem. You both work, but "he" (imagine a gender-neutral pronoun here) is incapable of controlling his spending, and has run up enormous credit card debt while you have been trying to save money. He claims that he has an expensive lifestyle which must be maintained, and that it's unfair to ask him to make sacrifices when he's always lived extravagantly before. You've even gone out of your way to try to negotiate a debt settlement with your creditors which only requires a small reduction in his spending, but he complains that even that amount is arduous, and vows to continue spending as normal, seeing no problem with your ever-increasing debt, and no scenario where you would "run out" of money.
What do you do? Well, apparently if you're the EU, you give him another $110b euros and hope that magically fixes the problem. ...WHAT? It's like giving free booze to an alcoholic while he's complaining about you asking him to stop drinking as much! It's absolutely insane.
At this point, the rest of the EU is going to be as much to blame for Greece's eventual colossal downfall and default as Greece itself, in much the same way an enabler must share some blame for an addict's self-destruction. If the more stable economies of Europe want to flush their money down the socialist economic toilet which is Greece, it's their right; if I were the US, though, I'd be telling my banks to value their debt at junk, and trade/adjust accordingly (and absolutely ensure that we, as a country, have as little exposure to their financial situation as possible).
If/when they want a real solution, I'd look at selling off some land. Greece has lots of easily separable islands which could make nice colonies for countries with money, and Greece could be a pioneer in rewriting borders with economic, instead of military, force. As a side-benefit, once you sold off a few islands, maybe the people of Greece would finally "get it", and act to save what remains of their country, instead of fighting about which of their failure policies and political parties are most to blame.
What do you do? Well, apparently if you're the EU, you give him another $110b euros and hope that magically fixes the problem. ...WHAT? It's like giving free booze to an alcoholic while he's complaining about you asking him to stop drinking as much! It's absolutely insane.
At this point, the rest of the EU is going to be as much to blame for Greece's eventual colossal downfall and default as Greece itself, in much the same way an enabler must share some blame for an addict's self-destruction. If the more stable economies of Europe want to flush their money down the socialist economic toilet which is Greece, it's their right; if I were the US, though, I'd be telling my banks to value their debt at junk, and trade/adjust accordingly (and absolutely ensure that we, as a country, have as little exposure to their financial situation as possible).
If/when they want a real solution, I'd look at selling off some land. Greece has lots of easily separable islands which could make nice colonies for countries with money, and Greece could be a pioneer in rewriting borders with economic, instead of military, force. As a side-benefit, once you sold off a few islands, maybe the people of Greece would finally "get it", and act to save what remains of their country, instead of fighting about which of their failure policies and political parties are most to blame.
Sell sovereign land? Are you kidding? The Greek hoi poloi insists on the free dolmathes and ouzo. This is the inevitable result of government leading the people to think they only have to vote for what they want, and poof, it will appear. You'll see the same thing happen here in only a few years. Can you imagine the American people not pitching a fit.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right. Its what the Greek Left has already imposed on the people: A loss of sovereignty.
I wonder if there’s another side to the story. The way I keep hearing it, Greek demonstrators just want money for nothing. It’s like they’re demonstrating against the fact money doesn’t grow on trees.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of transferred some land. It would create interesting legal issues if the land was owned privately b/c being part of another state could affect the value of their property. They could be sure to offer those people at least market value prior to the transition as part of the deal.
It would be neat if an organization bought an island and formed a micronation.
It would be great for Greece too. They could always plan to buy it back once they had extra money. If that causes people to scoff and say they’ll never have money to buy it back, that should make them stop and think. How are they ever planning to succeed economically? How are they even going to pay back money their borrowing? Is the plan going forward perpetual mediocrity struggling to service foreign debts?