Greek Tragedies Are Classics No One Reads Anymore

So here we are again. Greece is back in the news, the country that was fixed to be broken to be fixed again to throw craps. Of course it was never really fixed at all, but that’s not the point here.

How is this time different? Is the EU more ready for Greece to go? Is Greece ready to actually man up and leave? Because if the answer to either of those questions is “no”, then you’re wasting my time.

If even one of those answers is “no”, somebody will get on their knees and we go right back to where we were, as if nothing ever happened at all.

Actually the more likely of those two outcomes here is the EU core finally tells Greece to take a hike (and I’m not suggesting either is about to happen at that). The EU has had more than five years to map the fallout and come up with a strategy. They also don’t exactly need a Greece so much as have one; looking for the best, least painful outcome. If you’ve ever had a bum relationship, then you know as well as I do that there comes a point when you leave that person out to dry and don’t come back.

Who is Greece going to turn to? Will they turn inwards to Greece? I’m skeptical that will yield results. Turning inward in Greece leaves them looking at a pretty lazy workforce loaded with corruption and a national culture that includes not paying taxes and almost completely shutting down on a government payroll. You’ll pardon my old fashioned free market predilections if I am inclined to mock that for what it’s worth.

So they turn outwards. To whom does Greece run?

The current fan fiction involves a Greece which runs lovingly into Putin’s open arms; a Putin who somehow isn’t almost out of foreign currency reserves from a collapsed crude oil price, has a reserve of nation building experience at his disposal, and isn’t laden with a secret foreign war in one of the last nations that decided to trust Russian power.

Greece would probably run to Russia if they got punted out of the EU, but I fail to see how that would improve things, or hold up for very long once the mushy promises at the onset started to drop unfulfilled. It would be a short lived affair.

And Greece has to know that, somewhere. People were terrified of Syriza (maybe myself included, I don’t remember). What have they done, besides cave in to every German demand? Germany keeps winning these fights because Greece has no bargaining chips. Which kind of stops making them fights.

So gun to my head, no one will even be mentioning this in three months. Black swans do happen so maybe I’m smoked. But we’ve been here three times now, and I’ll be damned if I get worked up for number four, so pull the trigger already.

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