Some rather unsettling news

Here is a wonderfully cheery piece of news from the Daily Mail. Apparently, Jose Manuel Barroso has warned that the debt crisis could lead to a "loss of democracy" in Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Keep in mind that the EU has been lecturing their backwards American cousins for years, meaning that there is a bit of irony to be enjoyed here before hiding under your couch.

"Mr. Monks, now head of the European TUC, said ... "Look, if they do not carry out these austerity packages, these countries could virtually disappear in the way that we know them as democracies. They've got no choice, this is it.""

Anybody in the mood for another round of "overtax and spend more?" Anybody?

Screwing the welfare pooch

Remember either of these? The Euro has just hit a four year low against the dollar. I guess that is what happens after screwing the welfare pooch for all she was worth. I love the smell of deep fried Schadenfreude in the morning.

Smooth Jazz of social statism

The whole sovereign debt fiasco reminds me quite a bit of Odysseus’ mishaps on the Island of the Lotus Eaters. If any of you remember your Greek literature, you will remember that when Odysseus and his men wash ashore, they are given lotus to eat. The unfortunate side effect, was that people would fall asleep. When they woke up, they would eat more and drift off for another spell. Long narcoleptic interludes briefly interrupted by a quick snack reminds me of watching Titanic in the cinema, but at least when I left, I was only short $6 and a Sunday afternoon.

Wikipedia describes the effect this way: “The lotus fruits and flowers were the primary food of the island and were narcotic and addictive, causing the people to sleep in peaceful apathy.” This pretty much sums up the effects of the welfare state. You wake up, look around and discover that your country has distributed a few billion more than they collected, but hey; penny pinching doesn't energize the electorate quite like free handouts. Just when you start to worry about public debt, which is your debt after all, government representatives come by to tell you about a fantastic programme where you can sell them your old useless car for $4,500, well above market value, to purchase a newer, state approved vehicle. This isn’t very different from the “narcotic and addictive” lotus fruit that made Odysseus “sleep in peaceful apathy.” It is the smooth jazz of social statism.

Any good kosher recipes?

All this talk of the Greek gravy train has made me hungry. Anybody have any good kosher recipes they would like to share?

This was Sparta

This isn't necessarily a rhetorical question: If stupid threw a party, how many people would come? Thankfully, we can answer this scientifically. In a new WSJ article, 33.2% of Greeks do not accept the IMF-EU designed austerity plan in exchange for loans needed to avoid a debt default this week. If you are looking for some positive spin somewhere in this, a mere 21% stated that strikes should not be kept at a rational level i.e. that people should use violence as a weapon to force the state to let them all back on the gravy train. A day after a firebomb killed four people in a bank, three employees and an unborn baby, only a fifth of Greek citizens were able to support non-rational protests, meaning more violence in an effort to avoid the obvious. I guess every cloud does have a silver lining.

While the survey does indicate that a majority of Greeks are willing to swallow a few years of bitter medicine, there is also a significant portion of the population who apparently don't understand what happens when a country runs out of money. Quite simply put, when your "outgo" exceeds your "income" habitually, eventually you will reach a point when no one will be willing to loan you money that they think they might not recoup. Call this the subprime sovereign debt crisis; the Greeks over-mortgaged their country and now they are further underwater than Atlantis. While the option of allowing the bailiff to come and repossess the Akropolis and a couple cases of Ouzo might sound tempting, what exactly are German and French banks who are on the hook for roughly 110,000,000,000 Euros of Greek debt going to do with it? Relocate it to Euro-Disney? Throw a toga party? Sell it to Andorra?

While I am usually not inclined to make predictions, this crisis was about as difficult to foresee as a very tragic ending in a very Greek tragedy. When the Greeks joined the Eurozone, they were no longer able to devalue their currency or to inflate their way out of debt as they had in the past. They were also granted the ability to borrow far more money to feed their spending habits. For an addict to suddenly inherit a lump sum of cash is incredibly dangerous and usually self-destructive. Instead of checking themselves into the wing of the Betty Ford Clinic designed for profligate entitlement-oholics, they went on a raging binge. This is the hangover. Instead of spending the morning after avoiding sunlight and promising the pantheon of deities that they'll never do it again, the instincts of a frighteningly large minority of the people are to turn their booze stained shirt inside-out, splash some cologne on to cover last night's excesses, and to keep the party going.

So, if stupid threw a party, how many people would come? In Greece, about 1/3rd.

Welcome to We Are Government

Welcome to We Are Government; If anyone knows the correct Greek translation of "The wheels have fallen off the gravy train", someone please let me know.