Merkel Visits Greece, and They Are Mad

It should come as no surprise to regular readers that Greece is a financial and economic mess.

Germany's leader, Angela Merkel, is going to Greece in the next few days for some meetings.  It appears that most Greeks will be less than enthusiastic to see her.  Why?  Because they need someone to blame their massive mismanagement and over-spending on...they certainly aren't going to blame it on themselves.

Now check out these paragraphs from the article.

As Angela Merkel visits Athens on Tuesday, she will find a Greece in its fifth consecutive year of recession. In 2008 and 2009, the recession was a spillover from the global financial crisis. Since then it has been caused and deepened by the austerity policies imposed on Greece by the troika – of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the European Central Bank – and the Greek government.

These policies are devastating the Greek people, especially workers, pensioners, small businessmen and women, and of course young people. The Greek economy has contracted by more than 22%, workers and pensioners have lost 32% of their income, and unemployment has reached an unprecedented 24% with youth unemployment at 55%. Austerity policies have led to cuts in benefits, the deregulation of the labour market and the further deterioration of the limited welfare state that had survived a neoliberal onslaught.

The government argues that only the austerity agenda can make the Greek public debt viable again. But the opposite is true. Austerity policies prevent the economy from returning to growth. Austerity creates a vicious spiral of recession and an increase in debt that in turn leads both Greece and its lenders to calamity.

All this is known to the European and Greek policymakers and elites, including Merkel, who aim to implement similar programmes in all European countries facing debt problems, such as Spain, Portugal and Italy. Why do they insist so dogmatically on this disastrous political and economic path? We believe that their aim is not to solve the debt crisis but to create a new regulatory framework throughout Europe that is based on cheap labour, deregulation of the labour market, low public spending and tax exemptions for capital. To succeed, this strategy uses a form of political and financial blackmail that aims to convince or coerce Europeans to accept austerity packages without resistance. The politics of fear and blackmail used in Greece is the best illustration of this strategy.

Here;  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/08/greek-message-for-angela-merkel

I see....it is entirely the fault of the IMF and other European Central Bankers that Greece's economy sucks....and that your youth unemployment is at 55%.

Of course there is no blame to be found, with the author, in the corruption of the Greek government, the poor education system, the massive government pensions, the free health care and social programs that quash personal responsibility and resourcefulness.  Nope!  No blame there!

Nope!...it's all those dang bankers who are taking away Greece's fun!  What a bunch of kill-joys!

The liberal mind knows no limits as to how illogical it can become when pressed.

When you view the world to be made up of a single pie, and that pie can only be sliced in so many pieces...you end up with the idea that someone got a bigger piece than you did...AND THAT'S NOT FAIR!!  WE NEED TO TAKE SOMEONE ELSE'S PIECE OF PIE AND RE-CUT IT!

In reality, the world is a place that pie can be CREATED by innovation, thrift, technology, stewardship, hard work, education, and a whole bunch of other pie making machines.

The simple fact is that Greece spent way too much money.  And now that the Central Bankers of the world are asking for a responsible payment plan with an eye on what Greece is going to do to sustain itself...THE GREEKS ARE MAD!

Two things to ponder.....in world history, when you have 55% of the young people of any country with no job, no future and no hope...what usually results?  Yep...revolution and/or war.

The second thing is to cut and paste the information we are witnessing in Greece onto the the good ol' U.S. of A.  What do you think will happen here when 55% of our youth can't find good paying jobs, and a large percentage of our high school grads can't read or write and have virtually NO WAY of entering the middle class?  One statistic I heard last week is that over 150,000 college grads are currently working as janitors.  I wonder how they are going to pay back their $80,000 student loan, buy health insurance, car payments and pay rent on those salaries?  I wonder if they may be prone to join the OCCUPY WALL STREET movement when that heats up again?

Yep....revolution and/or war.