If I were Greek and young and looking toward sixty years of severe austerity imposed by foreign banks, I’d definitely vote no. What choice would I have? I would prefer that my country resume the Drachma, let the economy free fall to collapse, and go through ten tough years rather than sixty as fat carcass for my European brothers to pick clean.
Sixty years, three generations, would destroy the morale and character of the society, change it into country of beggars and thieves with no ambition, no work ethic, similar to what the East German worker became under 41 years of Communist rule: People in a gray, hopeless world shuffling down the streets like broken men who’ve just been released from years in prison. It took another twenty years, another generation, to bring the East Germans back into the fold and up to speed. And it was painful. I heard the same refrain over and over again when I was in the East Bloc: “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.”
When a people know that life will not improve no matter what they do or how hard they strive, they just go through the motions of surviving. They do what it takes, legal or illegal, to feed and house their families. And their sons and daughters learn to do the same. Soon, it becomes the culture and all strength is bled from them and soon there is no one in living who can remember anything different. A society of serfs.
It’s much better for the Greeks to just cut loose and let the chips fall where they may. It will be painful, but it won’t destroy who they are like sixty years of economic slavery would.
It will be only a matter of a few years before the banks will be back begging to invest, just like those credit card apps showing up in the mail back in the U.S. Zero interest the first year—please, please take our money! Look at Iceland, Brazil, Argentina. They all went bust, refused the first severe offers and threats of punishing isolation, they suffered, they held out for more reasonable offers, and they are now coming back strong—and it didn’t take sixty years. Now watch Greece. Greece is being sensible.
There is a house high above a fishing village on Corfu. It’s not very big. It looks even smaller on the inside because of the two foot-thick walls. But it’s beautiful with a little enclosed courtyard protecting the knarled olive tree in it’s center, with roses and ancient grapevines climbing up it’s walls. There’s an olive tree in the center. It looks like a ceramic sculpture from a distance with it’s arched doorways and domed roof. Some time after WWII, somebody put in indoor plumbing and electricity. That blue on the Greek flag? That’s the exact color of the Aegean Sea six hundred feet below as seen from the doorway. The white? That’s the blinding whitewash on these organic abodes, inside and out.
In the ‘60s it sold for $8,500. A few years ago, you couldn’t touch this place for less than a quarter of a million. Right now it could be had for one tenth that. But the taxes, which are now enforced, will kill you. If you are Greek, the taxes aren’t as severe. This is to prevent the world from buying up Greece and make them a country of permanent renters and paupers, in competition for their own land against Irish, Japanese, German and Scandinavian real estate investment groups—backed by the very same banks that are now hoping to enslave the country.
Individuals will come to Greece as they always have, because it is a beautiful place with a rich history and a proud culture. And they will spend money and make investments, and retire there in the Greek sun. Under the watchful eye of the government, they will help bring Greece back—a lot faster than the sixty years of austerity as proposed by these voracious foreign banks.
