Monday, June 18, 2012

The Greek spring


Spring has about one more day to run. The Greek election settlement might last that long. Or not.

As The Telegraph's astute Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says, "Greece’s new leaders have a mandate from Hell. Almost 52pc of the popular vote went to parties that opposed the bail-out Memorandum in one way or another. There is no national acceptance of the Troika’s austerity policies whatsoever." [The "Troika" is, apparently, new slang for the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund -- Greece's moneylenders and dictators.]

The Troika wants to keep the aid drip feed open while demanding Greeks live in a dead economy created by imposed austerity. Greeks reject the imposed austerity but want to keep the drip feed open. Irresistible force. Immovable object. 

This problem is insoluble in the terms that the EU potentates can't think outside of -- keeping disparate economies and national cultures in an economic union and a common currency. They're the continental version of One Worlders and open borders libertarians. Their ideology is based on single-valued logic that ignores every real-world factor that won't fit. 

For now, the EU overlords have the upper hand: the law, the money, the power. For now. The Bourbons and aristocracy of France had all that in 1785. Much good it did them, a few years on, when their heads looked around and noticed they were inside a basket.

The "who-whom" dichotomy can carry on quite a while. Most of mankind does go quietly when meeting irresistible force. Sooner or later, though, the "whom" become the immovable object.

Photobucket

3 comments:

Rick Darby said...

The previous comment, from someone who was barking mad, did not -- as the expression goes -- "contribute to the discussion."

Rick Darby said...

All right, Super Loon. Thank you for your insights. Now bugger off.

YIH said...

WOW! ''barking mad'' doesn't even do that justice.
I couldn't make any sense out of that gibberish at all.
More to the point of the post, over that past year Vox Day has been deconstructing this whole ''free trade'' ideology in a way that can be understood by non-economist laymen and demonstrates that it is as nonsensical as it's evil siblings multiculturalism and race neutrality. A recent post deals with a ''free-trade'' true believer vs. Pat Buchanan.
It also shows why Buchanan (and Perot) were correct, but also ineffective in making the point.
The WSJ types (and by extension talk radio) were able to merely smear them and make their arguments seem invalid.
In the first link, I recommend you read both the post and the comments (yes, over 100) because in the comments he defends and buttresses his points against many typical pro-''free-trade'' arguments.