"Stocks slumped for the second day in a row as a plan for Greece to hold a referendum on the terms of its financial rescue threatened to scuttle Europe's grand bailout plan."
Like some ancient tragedy right from the pen of Sophocles, the Greeks are on the precipice of doom, yet rather than making the drastic cuts to save their weakened state, they continue to put off the inevitable.
Democracies seem less equipped than ever to handle fiscal crises, and the cradle of Democratic government is not exception. In Greece, like many debt-plagued nation-states, the people have voted themselves largesse from the state time and again, and now they are outraged that they have to take massive cuts and pay more to the very state that they have cheated through legal shenanigans.
If the people rule, selecting their leaders to do what they want, though contrary to the public interest, how will the politicians muster the political will to cut spending, cap entitlements, and demand the very people who elected them to get back to work, pay their taxes, and prolong their careers before retirement?
With the people pitted against the powers that be, this complex drama rivals the blood-feuds of Clytemnestra, Orestes, and Agamemnon. At least those characters acted boldly and resolutely in the face of conflict. Their modern counterparts, however, have devolved into welfare queens whose blood-curdling screams demand more money and less accountability from the very government instituted to protect the rights of all.
Socrates must be rolling over in his grave. At least he had the option of drinking hemlock. The Greek people, and the world at large, will have to suffer through the epic economic downturn that will plague the world once the Greek people refuse to support their government's austerity package, or continue cheating against it with more tax evasion and corporate sloth.
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