Tsalagi
05-15-2010, 12:58 AM
The last minute rescue of the Greek economy has a lot of similarities to bailing out the alcoholic sibling who sulks in the back seat on the drive home from the drunk tank. Neither one is really remorseful or even grasps the enormity of the problem but they’ll take the help and the money anyway and assume there’s more where that came from. Think AIG, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and even Goldman Sachs who had Warren Buffett.
Greece is the same economy that was paying government workers for a 14 month year and only recently started to make a more aggressive attempt at collecting taxes in order to pay their bills.
The citizens responded by going on strike, including the tax collectors, and rioting, killing four bank employees. They seem to have no real awareness of just how much trouble they’re in or what it’ll take to get out.
Then there’s the role of the sober big brother who can see the looming disaster and keeps stepping in to clean up the mess hoping this is the last time. It never is and it’s the perfect recipe for going crazy and creating financial disasters for the enablers. Think taxpayer, taxpayer, taxpayer.
This is going to get to a place where each of the other 11 major countries that use the euro exclusively, plus a handful of smaller countries who have a combination of old and new currency and whose value is tangled up with the euro, are going to have to make a few hard choices. They’re going to have to choose their own economy or the economies and people of the countries around them. Voters in any country don’t really like bailing out their neighbors that they see every day. They’re going to like this even less.
Germany, which has already been through a painful reunification between East and West and has always been better at cost-cutting, may be the first to start demanding more concessions or getting up from the table and leaving. Britain, whose Labor party has been beaten up in the recent election, may be next.
Even though on Sunday the European finance ministers, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank pledged almost a trillion dollars to try and fend off the collapse of the Greek economy the worst is far from over, and in fact they may have only delayed the economic pain.
A bigger problem is that they are not the only potential country in trouble. Spain is considered the most likely to overheat next and their economy may be too big for a rescue by the others. Portugal and Ireland are also on the watch list.
:chief:
Greece is the same economy that was paying government workers for a 14 month year and only recently started to make a more aggressive attempt at collecting taxes in order to pay their bills.
The citizens responded by going on strike, including the tax collectors, and rioting, killing four bank employees. They seem to have no real awareness of just how much trouble they’re in or what it’ll take to get out.
Then there’s the role of the sober big brother who can see the looming disaster and keeps stepping in to clean up the mess hoping this is the last time. It never is and it’s the perfect recipe for going crazy and creating financial disasters for the enablers. Think taxpayer, taxpayer, taxpayer.
This is going to get to a place where each of the other 11 major countries that use the euro exclusively, plus a handful of smaller countries who have a combination of old and new currency and whose value is tangled up with the euro, are going to have to make a few hard choices. They’re going to have to choose their own economy or the economies and people of the countries around them. Voters in any country don’t really like bailing out their neighbors that they see every day. They’re going to like this even less.
Germany, which has already been through a painful reunification between East and West and has always been better at cost-cutting, may be the first to start demanding more concessions or getting up from the table and leaving. Britain, whose Labor party has been beaten up in the recent election, may be next.
Even though on Sunday the European finance ministers, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank pledged almost a trillion dollars to try and fend off the collapse of the Greek economy the worst is far from over, and in fact they may have only delayed the economic pain.
A bigger problem is that they are not the only potential country in trouble. Spain is considered the most likely to overheat next and their economy may be too big for a rescue by the others. Portugal and Ireland are also on the watch list.
:chief: