WASHINGTON, D.C. June 30 (DPI) – Greece can’t or won’t make a $1.8 billion scheduled payment today to the International Monetary Fund – less than 1 percent of the $350 billion it owes its creditors – setting off what many readers hope will be long-overdue financial reckoning for the Mediterranean country of 11 million.
While its culture of dysfunction and corruption appear to be largely unchanged, Greece and its people somehow continue to be portrayed in the major media as victims of avaricious lenders. Yesterday The Washington Post published this anecdotal report on the ongoing suffering of the Greek people:
The Greek people this year elected a leftist government that at first declared it would not cooperate further with creditors. More recently it said it plans a public referendum on how to proceed with its debt crisis, a pathetic cop-out in the eyes of many involved in the process. And today, on the deadline of a debt payment it has known was coming for several years, its elected officials are requesting a third bailout.
Throughout these recent years of kicking the financial can down the road, Greece continues to enjoy competing narratives in the press. Some say it’s the victim of the tough-minded stances of creditors, who have forced years of painful austerity on the Greek people. Then there is another narrative, one in which critics say Greece has failed to reform itself, failed to achieve even basic tax compliance, failed to cut its bloated public sector and failed too to raise the retirement age of its pensioners.
Based on more than 400 comments, readers of The Washington Post have largely taken the latter view, ceasing to be sympathetic of Greece, its government and its people. A sampling of the “best liked”:
‘Greeks feel strain of ‘emotional, economic war’
Let’s see. Retirement at full benefits at age 52. Assured paid vacations. Tax evasion on a mass scale. Nationalized industries. A national health care system. A chance to vote on repudiating their debts.
Oh, the tears run dry.
The title of this article simply buys into the dishonest populist rhetoric coming out of Greece. There is no “economic war.” Rather the rest of Europe has decided it won’t underwrite Greek recklessness and profligacy any longer. It is unfortunate for those in Greece who didn’t vote for Syriza or previous governments who promised the voting public limitless handouts, however, those who did have no one to blame but themselves.“The problem with socialist states is, eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
-Margaret Thatcher
Fascinating that this comment board seems to yield a clearer and more honest narrative than the original article. Let’s face it: With its culture of dysfunction and corruption and denial, Greece should never have been allowed into the Eurozone in the first place.
Greece is proof positive of how progressive overspending liberal socialism will kill economies. They are unsustainable. Even now Austerity, or common sense spending cuts and fiscally responsible spending, are refused as the ship continues to sink. Sound familiar to progressive over spenders in the United States Government. It is.