Reading all these posts concerning Greece, I chose -on purpose- not to reply (especially to those colourful ones from BillyJoeAllen concerning his dreams of buying a Greek island that the government SHOULD sell; 'cause debt
... ).
The above comments are the essence of it all. That's what Syriza administration is looking for and they will -hopefully- manage to get it from the EU. The alternative scenario is (sadly) far worse and will cost a lot more to everybody.
Greece will just have to declare a full default and get back to 70s-80s financially - but that's EXACTLY what already happened the last 5 years with the current austerity measures; on the other hand other countries in line will probably follow "the new paradigm" and default to their own private monetary system. Bye Bye EU.
Besides, there are a couple of "good will" neighbours that will urge to "help" Greece in exchange for some space in the Aegean... Don't you love (geo)politics?
Anyway; today's the day. My bets are that they will figure it out peacefully.
I sympathize with the Greeks. Not just an empty statement, I actually do.
What I
don't get is what seems to be the pervasive attitude among those who are the most unsatisfied:
What can we do about it? Us, the ordinary people, get fucked, while the elite runs the country into the ground.Problem is, since you're a representative democracy, if you don't care who runs the show, the worst ones will be in charge.
It's similar to the tax evasion problem, imo: rich people (everywhere, but especially in countries with dysfunctional institutions) use the following as an argument not to pay taxes: "If we'd pay the taxes, they'd go into the bottomless pit that is our inefficient government anyway".
And by doing so (evading taxes) they turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy: no tax income, ineffective state mechanisms, inequality, etc.
Maybe I'm generalizing too much over "all Greek people I've talked to", but it seems to be a recurrent theme: the fatalism.
