THE PERFORMANCE OF A GREEK DRAMA….
(or just another of Aesop’s fables?)

Everyone is picking on Greece these days, and it’s hard to tell if what we’re seeing there is the performance of a Greek Drama….or just another of Aesop’s fables, you know, that cautionary one about the grasshopper and the ant.

In many respects that particular fable seems the most applicable to this situation, and not just to Greece, but to much of the rest of the Euro zone as well. We might go even so far as to include ourselves. Let’s face it, we’re not that far removed from their situation either!

Unfortunately for the Greeks, they not only appear to have gone further out on a debt limb than the rest of us, they also just didn’t have the collateral means to back it up, to cover even a fraction of that debt. So, they’ve had to pick up their begging bowls and ask their fellow Euro members to bail them out.

Their Euro neighbors, however, much like the ant, are not really inclined to bail them out, not having had either the political balls, or the smarts, much earlier on, to create some kind of proper reserve system to back it all up. So now they’re scrambling like hell to try and put something together to do….just that….before their entire common edifice comes tumbling down. The Greeks….are just the first to get in line for a run on a bank….that isn’t there.

Meanwhile, the Greeks continue with their panhandling riff (if there’s anything more to beware of than Greeks bearing gifts….it’s Greeks….not bearing any). Thus, like the ant, their fellow Euro players are saying: “Hey, dudes, you did the party-hardy bit when the good times rolled, and sang your way all through those balmy summer days. Well, now that winter’s coming on….why don’t you just learn to dance….to keep yourselves warm?”

Of course, all that sounds much better and more couth in French (it has a smoother knack for that kind of put down, than English). C’est la vie!

What all this really boils down to is a simple reality which, much like the laws of physics, remains largely immutable….if you can’t afford to pay….don’t play….because if you don’t know which you are….it’s an expensive way to….find out!

CENTURION