Catch-22 Crisis: The Grand Plan – Part 2 of 5
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This article follows on from Part 1: Bail Out With A Handkerchief
When movies like Catch-22 begin to make sense on more than one levels, it’s time to wake up and smell the smoke.
The theme of this episode is the economy. The economy is not going very well and the world’s politicians, flanked by the world’s bankers and businessmen [sic], are trying to resolve the crisis. They are calling emergency meetings to discuss the various strategies they need to take. They are holding summits to show the world they are serious about taking decisive action. They are going on TV, telling their people to stay calm because everything is under control; that there is no need to worry, that their interests will be met and their rights defended. They seem sincere and eager, ready and willing. They are not. They are neck deep in trouble and sinking deeper, taking everyone with them.
Newsflash: whoever may be responsible for a crashing plane, you don’t seek them out and punish them while the plane is falling down. Neither do you have a debate on how to deal with things. You have a crash meeting and fix the damn thing before crash becomes part of your broken skull. And if you’re not in the plane but on the ground, you don’t wait for it to crash, talking theories and turnovers; you prepare for a rescue operation and oversee it, making sure it is carried out well. If you are sane and in touch with reality. If you are able.
Not our world leaders, at least not so far. They seem to keep missing the point, babbling, bickering and politicking their way ahead, and on go the discussions about the future of the economy, trying to figure out solutions, while the whole operation comes crashing down in flames, taking its citizens with it.
Here’s how the state of the economy and its politicians look like. You be the judge whether this is satire or reality.
Greece is Just the Start
Take Greece, for instance. She faces one of the worst conundrums a modern state has ever had to face. If she does not cut spending she cannot afford to pay her debts and goes bankrupt. It she cuts spending and raises taxes to pay her debts her citizens starve and her economy crashes completely. As you can see there’s a problem right off the bat.
Furthermore, Greek politicians are trying to meet the demands of the nation’s creditors, who demand immediate reform in return for much-needed funding. This reform will be good for Greece in the long run because it will finally get the state on a path that is sustainable by cutting the behemoth public service down, shaving all vampirian entitlements off, clamping down on institutionalized tax evasion, raising the retirement age from 50-something to maybe 65, banning multiple pensions, and in general turning Greece into a responsible, self-sufficient, properly-run state. But in the short term, the austerity measures are like chemotherapy. They might kill this patient for good.
Good riddance, some say, we have no need for Greece, let her go to hell. Only they do have need for Greece, and great one at that, Forget compassion, I won’t even go there, this is about dry, cold, economic policy. Fact: if Greece goes down, Italy gets afflicted and goes down too. You thought cancer was not contagious? Financial cancer is, and it moves like a crab, in all directions, faster than you can say house on fire. Italy gets afflicted – in fact, she is already afflicted with her own 1.8 trillion euro debt – so any death rattle from her neighbor and she metastasizes, losing all confidence in herself and buckling down, and everyone deserts her, and paf, there she goes too.
Tough Times. Source: Flickr. All rights reserved by Isak Aerendil
And then Spain goes down, and France goes down, and everything goes down. The situation is contagious because all the players are joined at the economic hip – it’s the way it has been designed over the past decades. One for all and all for one.
Unfortunately some of them screwed up in the process. Now it’s all for one and some or nothing, and they don’t like it. Sadly, if they don’t band together, it’s going to be nothing,
The Germans know this but they cannot bear the prospect of putting their hard-earned money into funds that seem to bail out – and, thus, reward – profligate, irresponsible behavior. They instead take the high road and present obstacles, telling their people their interests will be protected, their rights defended. They hold meetings and devise plans how to have their cake and eat it too: stave off a disaster that threatens to destroy everything, including the savings they so desperately want to protect, but they want this done without getting their hands dirty. Just like the Greeks, who want to remain part of the EU exercising the necessary reform. And the Italians, who don’t want to go through the same dire straits as Greece but are equally reluctant to pass the necessary reform. And the British, who want to be a key player in Europe but don’t want to pay for the Eurozone’s blunders and might even want to leave the EU altogether. You get the picture.
And on go the discussions and debates.
[...] This article follows on from Part 2: The Grand Plan [...]
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