Now they've really gone and done it.
Pictures are splashed all over the web of Greece in flames, the citizens of the very birthplace of democracy rioting because their dumb ass Politicians refuse to listen to them when they say "we've had enough". Bullying MPs, desperate to save their own careers, quite happily signing the citizens they are supposed to represent into virtual slavery to keep the dream alive.
Except of course, it won't. Slashing pensions, scalping the minimum wage and firing 150,000 public sector workers is not going to save a people who have lived beyond their means for a decade. Entry to the EU was only granted on fiddled figures and despite a second bailout equalling a total of €300 billion, the Greeks will not see a penny of it. It will just be shifted from the Eurozone taxpayer to the bond holding banks that encouraged the debt in the first place.
Rumours are rife that Greece will default in June anyway, unable to produce any growth or tax revenues and with the minimum wage now set at €400 a month and a coffee the same price as in Mercedes laden Munich, I don't expect those flames in Athens to dampen down anytime soon.
So where did it all go wrong? It started with a sense of entitlement from those in the US who believed that "change" could see everyone owning a property. Monies were lent to those who could not and would never repay in the misguided belief that interfering in the market could cure all the ails of an "unjust society". Yes, Obama, I'm talking to you. You believed Capitalism could be twisted to be all inclusive, making everybody rich and ensuring poverty was wiped out. As usual, when Government decides it can dictate, the exact opposite has occurred. You can now pick up houses in the very neighbourhoods you destroyed by seeking to save for $1000 on Ebay. Banks that should've known better not to listen to you, demanded you bail them out when your dream turned sour - and you complied, destroying any last vestige of true Capitalism along with it.
What killed Greece, and in turn democracy in Greece was the simple and complete arrogance of Politicians to accept that they do not control Capitalism. I can buy a house 10 miles from the Greek Border in Bulgaria for £3000, where the average monthly salary is around £300 - the same as the very minimum a Greek may earn by law. Cross the border into Greece and you won't find a property for less than £100,000. Hugely inflated and subsidised prices, not dictated by the natural market, but by the arrogance of Greek politicians who insisted the Emperors New Clothes were made of the finest silk after all.
With elections in April, and no fall back plan of borrowing more money to bribe the electorate like last time, I expect the Political landscape of Greece to change dramatically. The hard left will continue announcing that tractor production and turnip harvests will save the country and the hard right will assume that waving flags and closing the borders will restore prosperity. It won't. Greece, now in it's sixth year of recession is naturally undoing what it did wrong. It is returning the designer handbags and expensive suits to the shop and pulling the old dungarees out of the wardrobe once again. Now which Greek politician has the guts to tell their German masters that they won't be ordering any more BMW's on cheap French credit for a while? The sooner someone in Greece or the Eurozone makes it clear that the Euro was a luxury a simple melon farmer could never have afforded in the first place, the sooner Greeks will stop adding to the ruins in Athens.
