Why are the Greeks protesting?

Daddy’s partners have done him in. So daddy has two options. Declare bankruptcy, and perhaps never get another chance, or to pay off his debts, penny by penny, through hard work and harder living.

He chooses the latter. This means no more chauffeured cars and new clothes for you, but it does mean you will grow up in honour and when you enter the cruel world, you will not be burdened with a stigma.

If you are good boy, you bring your little toys to daddy and ask him to sell them off. And he’ll weep and kiss you. And go back to his backbreaking labours. And you’ll never never complain.

But the Greeks are complaining. Why?

Perhaps because there is more to it than meets the eye.

The Greeks must be thrown out of the EU to teach them and the other PIIGS a lesson they’ll never forget. Very well.

Liar Liar
Pants on fire
Your nose is longer that a telephone wire

But what were they doing in the EU in the first place if they were such a financial risk? If the Greeks were pulling figures out of their hats, did no one notice that those figures belied reality? If yes, European economists are not fit to be described as such. If no, then Germany and France deliberately turned a Nelson’s eye to skullduggery and the rest.

Why? Some say it was because they needed growth figures ‘maturing’ economies could ‘credibly’ provide the EU. In which case, there must have been an pact, explicit or implicit, that when the bubble bursts (inevitable), there would be no punishment.

The Greeks don’t see the other side of the pact being kept, and are understandably furious.

So why is Merkel being so difficult? A godfather who doesn’t take care of his jailed hoodlums’ families will soon find himself in trouble. Why does the Chancellor of Germany not get that simple thing?

Well, one reason can be that the indignation could be window dressing for domestic consumption. The other could be that the Greeks, like the Icelanders, over stepped. The latter took Englishmen for a ride. Surely Tony wasn’t going to put up with that. Maybe the Greeks were over-naughty too.