Tag: greece

Why You Should Care About May 6th

Lucas Papademos is not a disgraced football coach. He isn’t dating a Kardashian. Nor is he starring in the latest Bond movie. Not even a last-minute entry into the race for the GOP’s presidential nomination.

If he were any of those things, of course, you’d be much more likely to recognize the name and face. Lucas Papademos is, in fact, the interim prime minister of Greece. He has been desperately trying to construct an economic recovery out of his nation’s financial collapse.

I care deeply what happens to Greece because, for one thing, I happen to be Greek. I have relatives and friends who are struggling and face the prospect of struggling much more. But I also see no small measure of risk to the world economy if Greece’s economic restructuring, which Papademos has so far led, is allowed to slow, reverse or, God forbid, completely collapse.

Papademos has received the president’s permission to dissolve parliament and hold elections on May 6th. Much – close to everything, perhaps – hangs in the balance for Greece, for Europe, for the world’s economy.

We should all offer Papademos, and Greece itself, our heartfelt blessings.

Reality Check

Athens is ablaze.

Many Greeks are consumed with anger over the terms necessary to avail themselves of the financial bailout offered by the deities of the European community and have taken to the streets in protest. The changes, protesters claim,  amount to a significant and unacceptable change in Greek life, in Greek society, in what it means at its core to be Greek.

This is a precarious moment. Failure of the Greek government to deliver on these terms (and get the bailout funds) would result in serious consequences for Greece, and for the rest of Europe. Together with other developments, it may signal the end of European financial union – no more single currency, open trading relationships, free flow of people across historic national boundaries.

Care to watch a complete meltdown of the European community economy? Care to consider for just a moment what that might mean to the rest of the world? War? Complete world economic collapse?

The scale of this issue is, I realize, hard to fathom, even, perhaps, harder to take. So, I understand my fellow Americans wanting ready distraction – professional golf, the “tragic” death of a pop music princess, Oscars, baseball’s spring training, March Madness, etc.

All well and good; I enjoy diversions too. But our media is splashed with every angle possible on Whitney Houston, God rest her soul, and not a sentence for events that could shape our world for the rest of our lifetimes.

Time for a good strong dose of reality.

A New Oxi Day: Greece Stays Sovereign

In what might be considered an echo of Oxi Day, now more than 70 years on: the Greek government has rebuffed a German proposal to cede control of its finances to the Eurozone. To have accepted, many observers believe, would have amounted to giving up no small measure of national sovereignty – for which there is no popular support.

It is surprising that, even in light of Europe’s 20th century history of conflict and mistrust between nations, some governments in Europe still do not seem to understand how their paternalistic and heavy-handed demands might be perceived by others.