The BBC reported today that Greece will have to accept new conditions for their bailout of 130 Billion Euros and one of which will be austere reductions to the public budget as well as salary reductions in the private sector. The Greek government has been backed into a corner by a debt greater than its annual GDP and a violent reaction by its populace to a long series of cuts to income and services. CBS NEWS recounted on its website that the leaders of Greece have kicked their addiction to debt, but CBS NEWS only wants to paint a pretty picture of a very ugly dog. There is no way for the Greeks to ever pay back this debt.
Playing off 160% of your GDP is a Mission Impossible. I know because I was in the same situation with my credit card debt in 2007. I asked for relief. The bank said no. I could them that there was no way I could pay off the debt as long as the interest was so high. The banks did not care about me. They only cared about their profits, so I cut up my credit cards and mailed them back to the banks.
“I am dead.”
Banks will not accept this behavior from sovereign nations, but writing off the debt of Greece isn’t so easy, because the major economic players in Europe do not want to print the money to pay off the deficit to keep the value of the Euro up to buy oil, cheap goods from China, and pay for the lifestyles of the rich and Greece is only one of many nations on the edge of default.
Unemployment in the ailing European countries has risen to 20%.
Ireland is experiencing a wave of suicides.
People in Portugal are talking about revolution.
And the technocrats simply say cut cut cut.
But there is another more radical solution.
Greece should attack the USA and say that they did it, because they are backing Iran. Nobody in America can find Greece on a world map and the Pentagon will be happy to have another war on its hands with Iraq over and Afghanistan on the wane.
A nice tidy $250 billion war would cover Greece’s debt to the last drachma.
So they lose Athens and the Acropolis.
It’s not too much to ask to wipe the slate clean.
Tabula Rasa came from Aristole in his thesis De Anima or On the Soul, although the great philosopher was more concerned with the human intellect than owing your soul to the devil.
I tried to translate this Latin phrase into Greek.
It came out tabula rasa.
I have one and it feels good, but then I never went to war and the Greek government doesn’t have to either.
They just have to tell the banks.
Fuck off.
Iceland went belly up and they haven’t sunk into the Atlantic.
Of course they don’t have MacDonald’s anymore, but that’s a blessing.
Tabula rasa abracadabra.
As magic as clicking your heels and finding yourself back in Kansas.
ps Tabula Rasa is a hoot ’em up video game for eternally pubescent cyber mass-murderers.