Thursday, July 16, 2015

Greek gifts

It seems as though the Greeks have finally accepted the European bail out deal (through gritted teeth); I guess that means the cash will start flowing again. The whole thing seems short-sighted to me, I can't see how the hell they're ever going to pay it all back but perhaps everyone knows this and I'm just missing some kind of political expediency point and it doesn't really matter in the bigger scheme of all things European.

In my (simplistic) view, Greece would be far better off dropping out of the Euro and concentrating on sorting out their internal accounting and tax affairs. They clearly operate to a different beat than the Germans as far as their economy goes and so trying to entwine the two things seems as doomed as trying to mix country music with thrash metal. Contrary to how this last comment might sound, generally, I'm very pro-European union. I think it makes complete sense that like-minded European countries team up (economically and culturally) to prevent wars and to compete with the Americans and the Chinese, but the economic part is only going to work if there's economic convergence between the countries involved and a political level playing field. The whole Greek scenario reminds me of the old joke about the Doctor who gives a patient 6 months to live, but when he doesn't pay the medical bill the Doctor gives him another six months.

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