Greece and the Euro: after hubris........nemesis!

‘So they go on in a strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift., solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent. And so we go on preparing more months and years for the locusts to eat..........’

Winston accurately sums up the state of European leadership.

We are looking at the possibility of a financial and economic tsunami that will sweep over the Eurozone and affect the whole world economy.

And what do Merckel and Sarkozy do? Diddlysquat! They have meetings. They give reassurances. And have hissy fits when others, like Tim Geithner, attempts to give advice.

What needs to be done about the euro-mess has been obvious for weeks, but Europe’s Big Two are more concerned with their election prospects.

Greece’s debts must be rescheduled, meaning that the creditors will just have to wait for their money. The Greeks have no intention of honouring their promises to reduce the public sector, to privatise hopelessly inefficient state enterprises, to cut expenditure, to reduce the debt burden. If they don’t get their next tranche of bail-out they will go broke at the end of October, but they are gambling – probably correctly – on the EU stumping up on yet another load of ECB wonga. Lack of probity in Greek financial politics is a tradition as old as the modern state of Greece.

The central banks must recapitalise the commercial banks because a liquidity problem is gathering momentum that led to the crash of 2008, when banks were unable to borrow from one another. French banks are particularly exposed and the situation for the Germans is not pretty, which goes to show that the Masters of the Universe are numpties. Who on earth would lend billions to the Greeks?

The chatterati maintain that there are only two alternatives – for Greece to leave the Eurozone, which is financially unacceptable, or to have full monetary and political union, which is politically unacceptable. Oh dear!

And after Greece, the sharks already smell blood around France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Will it be a case of ‘the hour findeth the man’? If so, will it be a Winston, FDR or Maggie? Or will it be an Adolf?

And how appropriate in a Greek context that nemesis now follows hubris!