David Craig, on July 3rd, 2015Money may be in short supply in Greece. But there is no shortage of accusations as to who is to blame for the country’s economic collapse. Most of Europe seems to be ganging up against Greece. And they are right to accuse the Greeks for profligacy, corruption, waste and massive overspending on public-sector non-jobs, inflated salaries and pensions at 50.
But Greek leaders, on the other hand, claim their country is being financially waterboarded and asphyxiated by the jackboot of Germany monetary might.
A 500-word blog isn’t the place to give a profound and educative analysis. But here are just three of many reasons (which most of the ‘experts’ often fail to mention) why Greece’s creditors are not quite as innocent of blame for the current catastrophe as they like to make out
1. Lending to a unreformed and unreformable spendaholic – Below is a chart showing how many times some of the world’s most incompetently run countries have defaulted in the last 200 years (click to see more clearly)
While not achieving the spectacular Gordon-Brownian financial incontinence of many Latin American countries, Greece is doing pretty well with no fewer than seven defaults – the latest five being 1826, 1843, 1860, 1894 and 1932. And now with the current cock-up, at eight defaults Greece has moved up towards Argentinian levels of recidivist self-bankruptcy.
The lenders, mainly German and French banks, seem to have blindly ignored history and shoveled money into the financial black hole that is Greece in the knowledge that their political power and ‘too big to fail’ size would mean they would always be bailed out by EU taxpayers if things went t*ts up as they inevitable would
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If the Greeks (spendthrift socialists though they may be) help bring down the EU I will be spending a lot of drachmas in the future there as a big thank you.
Yesterday there was an article on the BBC website, “Why Greece’s richest village is voting ‘yes'” which tells of the economic “miracle” that took place in the village of Anavra.
A blueprint for the future perhaps? Ahh sorry, no. It turns out the mayor took a trip to Brussels and arranged for every subsidy, boondoggle and white elephant going to be introduced as part of the rural development program. Truly bicycles to Mercedes in a generation.
I’m not being judgemental, far from it. No laws were broken, AFAIK. Why wouldn’t you? – free money, sounds great. No doubt every family now has fibre broadband, subsidised green energy, modern transport links, you name it.
So consumption has gone through the roof but has there been any fundamental change in mindset or aspiration to put any of this to use? Will all of this spark a latent entrepreneurial spirit to really push the economy forward? Or will they just enjoy the handouts while they last and work less than before?