North Americans are befuddled by Greek workers’ staunch denial of their dire economic plight and, by the same token, Greeks are befuddled that others don’t understand their anger. Just who is to blame? This is the conundrum.
Today, Greece’s economy lies in tatters for various reasons, most of which seem rather elementary. Long before entering Economics 101, one learns that you cannot spend more than you earn — this applies to governments just as it does to individuals, even though governments use creative, adjustable accounting techniques that individuals cannot.
A brief analysis of Greece’s collapsing economy shows that:
• Its public debt is almost 50 per cent larger than its gross domestic product.
• Its GDP is shrinking — dramatically.
• Its annual spending far outstrips its earnings.
• Its youth unemployment is disproportionately high.
• Its workers’ pension benefits are extremely generous.
• Tax evasion is rampant and out of control.
• Annual inflation rates are eating away at any solid signs of growth.
Greek anger does have a basis, though. During better times (the 1960s), before Marshall McLuhan’s “global village” and technology placed everyone under an international microscope and into a single, economic microcosm, Greeks lived a slow-paced, idyllic life, one that many could easily adapt to if one had a choice between our fast-paced, money-driven rat race or living a quiet life that provides ample time for family, friends and life’s general enjoyment.
Even Athens’ street dogs were happy. Most North Americans cannot grasp this concept, since they have never experienced it.
When the European Union concept was born — mostly fostered by hard-working, temperate-climate, northern countries such as Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France — they did not take into account that entire cultures (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal) would have to undergo complete makeovers to fit into the maelstrom of new, aggressive, fast-paced, dog-eat-dog, Western-style economies.
Early EU partners never fathomed that such a cultural shift would be a hindrance, let alone a major wrench in the works.
The laid-back ebb and flow of southern European countries, which existed for millennia, was suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar, undesirable, gerbil-in-a-cage work world, which they neither understood nor wanted.
When the drachma gave way to the euro, the Greeks’ peaceful lifestyle and economic sovereignty rapidly disappeared. When their debt increased due to age-old practices that sustained their age-old lifestyle, more money was lent to Greece to meet growing shortfalls.
This was analogous to giving drug addicts more drugs to fix their problem. These expanded and extended loans were debts Greece couldn’t repay, which led to their present-day crisis.
One cannot expect a nonchalant, easy-going society like Greece’s to suddenly shift gears, like a Ferrari, into a “nose-to-the-grindstone,” treadmill-like, North European work world that does not enhance their already carefree lifestyle. To Greeks, it makes no sense whatsoever.
The question now remains: Who should pay for this gross miscalculation of a social re-engineering experiment gone awry? The unwitting Greeks, who are the victims, or the incompetent EU bankers who led them down the garden path to economic disaster?
Dave Harrison lives half the year in Chilliwack and the other half in Ruse, Bulgaria, on the Danube River, just north of Greece.
