Greece Is The Word

So Greece is bankrupt for the seventh time in the past two hundred years.
This brings Ronald Wright's aphorism to mind yet again--"each time history repeats itself, the price goes up." This time, the price is immense. The first downpayment is Greek membership in the Eurozone. They remain in the union, for now, but in name only. Further casualties are certain...probably in the literal sense of lives lost. History shows that Europe does not remain merely unstable for long before going off like old nitroglycerin.

In hindsight, one wonders what those who moulded the European Union could possibly have been thinking. I'd imagine they let idealism run roughshod over reality. Wouldn't it be nice, they thought, if we could unite continental Europe into a land free of nationalism? Laudable goal, politically. Financially, however...
Putting aside the cultural differences between northern and southern European nations, removing the ability for a country to manage its own economy is never a very good idea. Greece, of course, compounded things by by not just cooking its books, but positively charring them, in a successful (at first) effort to deceive the overseers that all was and would be well.

Well, all is not well. This has been driven home with all the force of a blow from Zeus' hammer. The nerve of Papandreou! To think he could actually threaten to take the latest bailout package to the hoi polloi in a referendum, as if Greece had invented democracy or something! Merckel and Sarkozy set the record straight. Greece was a member in questionable standing of the European Union, it was told, and it would remain so as long as it did what it was told, without question or hesitation. Any misstep, such as, oh, I don't know, involving the citizenry...well, the punishment would be mythical and immediate.

So much for a union of equals.

To be clear, yes, Greece brought this calamity on itself through fiscal mismanagement so extreme it qualifies as an art form. That said, nobody deserves what's about to befall the commoners in that benighted country. Wages are being cut by up to 60% as taxes and levies rise. If you check your Revolutionary Cookbook--call it The Joy Of Anarchy--you'll find those two ingredients are the binding agents in any dish of civil unrest you can imagine.

There have already been riots. As things progress, you can expect more. If we're lucky, they won't spread and engulf the whole of Europe.

Do you feel lucky, punk?