Greece’s Odyssey
The saga of the financial trouble in Greece continues. Something that some would have expected to end much sooner, like the journey of Odysseus. To cross from Troy to Greece ought to be a short and straightforward journey. For some reason this was not so. Again, much like the journey of Odysseus, which was fraught with challenges such as Calypso, the sirens, Polyphemus, and many others, Greece’s journey is has its own deities and mythical monsters to to be feared and be dealt with. These creatures have different names in this tail of hardship after hardship. The first monster was the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) in 2007, now, nearly 8 years later the new beast to contend with is the so-called bailout deal. In between, the European Debt Crisis, Sovereign Debt Crises (there were and still are more than one), Grexit, Government Default, Restructuring, Unemployment, Double then Triple Dip Recession, Deflation, Budget Deficit, and Euro Breakup are only a few of these creatures which have been, continue to be, and will be wrangled with and overcome. How and why it is lasting so long is something that we may only find out once the crisis has long ended.
There is only one thing that we can know. This is that the longer this takes, the farther away the end appears. Meanwhile, Greece must remain like your cousin whom you have to look after falling on hard times. Following the accumulation of debt and falsifying accounts for years on end, he has found himself in serious financial trouble. He is also finding himself underemployed. Now the rest of Europe feels the need to help their newly impoverished neighbour as he struggles from month to month.
The solutions appear to be few and no single one will please a majority of people. End the Euro? Allow Greece to leave/kick them out? Reform the Eurozone’s policies? Any of these decisions will have a tremendous impact on the global economy, which is impressive considering the small population of 10 million. I say that we take the easy way out and pretend that everything is fine, and pretend that the nation vanished in 2008 until things blow over.