Poor Athens; The Gods Flee Mt. Olympus

What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others

 “Look now how mortals are blaming the gods, for they say that evils come from us, but in fact they themselves have woes beyond their share because of their own follies.”

                                                        -Homer
By Mark J. Grant

When asked, and oh so many times, how I thought that Greece would play out, I have always offered the same answer. “They will continue to beg, they will say anything, do anything, until the money stops and then they will proclaim Greece for the Greeks and revolt.” The Greeks only assume the mantle of serfdom to keep the pipeline of capital flowing. As an outsider I would say that they have damaged their national psyche in the process and caused undue pain for their citizens but it must seem simpler, to the elite of Greece, to beg rather than go back to work. The problem for Europe now is that the amount of money is so large and the pain will be so great that they wince at the consequences of their misbegotten strategy. Europe provided money, demanded austerity, and kept the charade in play far longer than good sense would dictate. This should have all been shut down years ago but the poorly performed play limped along as the benefactors wanted neither the shame of closing it down nor the financial loss that it will ultimately entail. Now, however, I would assert; the tragedy is about to end and the farce about to begin.

“What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.”

                                                      -   Diogenes

 The final act, so long in coming, is starting as a matter of necessity. In a real sense the recession on the Continent is causing it and demands from several major players that are converging in a final act of contrition directed at the gods of yore are quite close, closer than many think, to forcing what must be forced which is an end to the long running and ill performed jest. In fact the Greek word “tragoedia” actually means “goat-songs” and the old goats on the Continent are about to find themselves roasted on the spit.

Austria has said no more money. The Netherlands has said no more money. From several sources I have heard that it is now a losing cause in Berlin to wring more money from the Germanic coffers while the IMF has stated quite clearly that they will not fund unless someone besides them takes the hit. If you pay attention you will notice that the grand coalition of the IMF and the EU has reached the hard place in the road to Marathon while the sovereign nations in Europe are split along party lines of needing and those expected to provide for the needy and so the end is near. In the latest act of desperation the Greeks now want the ECB to extend the maturities of their debt and while Mr. Draghi may be singing “Save the World” for the Spanish and the Italians he has made it quite clear that no such Greek debt forgiveness will be happening within the corridors of the European Central Bank. The doors are closing down the long hallway in which Greece has run for more than two and one-half years now and the alms givers, seeing that not only has nothing has been done but that demands for money increase are finally turning a deaf ear to the pleas as their own coffers decrease.

“Ancient of days! August Athena! Where, where are thy men of might? Thy grand in soul? Gone--glimmering through the dream of things that were.”                 

                             -Lord Byron

 Soon, quite soon, the Greeks will be forced back to their ancient traditions and the existence will be Spartan and the trials of Hercules will be enacted once again.

“Men shut their doors against a setting sun.”
                       -William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens