North Americans are completely befuddled by Greek workers' staunch denial of their dire, economic plight and, by the same token, Greeks are befuddled why others don't understand their anger. There lies the conundrum. Examination of the flip side of the coin illustrates that it's not altogether their fault.
Today, Greece's economy lies on the verge of collapse for various reasons, most of which seems rather elementary. Long before entering Economics 101, one learns that you cannot spend more than you earn - this applies to governments just as it does to individuals even though governments can use creative accounting techniques which individuals cannot.
A brief analysis of Greece's collapsing economy shows that: a) its public debt is approximately one and a half times its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), b) its GDP is shrinking rather than growing, c) its annual spending far outstrips its earnings, d) its unemployment is disproportionately high, f) its workers' pension benefits are extremely generous, g) tax evasion is rampant and out of control, and h) annual inflation rates are eating away at any possibility of solid growth.
Greek anger does have a solid basis. Let us rewind to better times - the 1960s - before Marshall McLuhan's "global village," and technology, placed everyone under an international microscope and into a single "microcosm."
Prior to this, Greeks lived a peaceful, slow-paced, idyllic life - one which we could easily aspire to if one had a choice between our money-driven, fast-paced "rat race" or living a quiet life which provided ample time for family, friends, and general enjoyment of life.
This is something most North Americans cannot even begin to grasp since they have never experienced it. If one is born and raised in a beehive colony that is all one knows.
When the European Union concept was born - mostly fostered by temperate climate countries like Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France - they did not take into account that entire cultures (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal) would have to completely change to fit into the mix and maelstrom of a new, fast-paced, dog-eat-dog, Western-style economy.
Early EU partners never even fathomed that such a cultural shift would be a major wrench into the works.
The ebb and flow of southern, European countries which existed for millennia was suddenly thrust into an unknown work-world which they neither understood nor wanted.
In Greece, the drachma was suddenly swallowed up into the euro, and overnight their world transformed. When their debt increased due to age-old traditions and practices, which sustained their age-old lifestyle, more Euros were loaned to them to meet their shortfalls.
This was tantamount to giving a drug addict more drugs to fix his problem.
Instead of weaning the Greek economy into their newfound, Euro-paced lifestyles, they were given more loans, which they couldn't repay which simply exacerbated their problems.
The question now remains: who should pay for this gross miscalculation of societal re-engineering: the unwitting Greeks who were the victims or the malfeasant bankers who led them down the garden path to economic destruction?
Dave Harrison is a retired teacher, former journalist and 30-year resident of Prince George who has been a regular contributor to The Citizen.
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