Ode On A Grecian Turn

Well, not an ode exactly -- I will leave that sort of thing to John Keats -- but the following little quatrain by Clarence Day struck a chord:

When eras die their legacies
Are left to strange police;
Professors in New England
Guard the glory that was Greece.

The key word here I believe is "WAS".

Now every so often I get a chance to simply mull something over, aided and abetted by a serious martini. In this case, my thoughts turned to Greece, and the "glory" that is now in serious decline. I offer these thoughts in the hope of making a very murky situation a bit clearer.

Not that Greece crashed overnight. It has, I daresay, been some time since the Greeks left mathematics, governance and architecture and went into the restaurant business. Notwithstanding this excellent culinary contribution, there has been a slow decline from the age of Pericles, Euripides, Sophocles et al. More recently, this decline began to hit warp speed as spending began to outrageously outstrip revenue, bringing Greece to the brink of bankruptcy.

And as Greece is now ensconced in the European Union, and has forsaken the Drachma for the Euro, the country cannot inflate their way out of the mess.

This would not matter overmuch if there were truly a United States of Europe, where Greece comprises an estimated 2%--3 % of European Gross National Product. The other "states" could easily make up the difference. In the United States, for instance, Alabama or Georgia could get into fiscal trouble, and a national solution would be called for. Europe, however, is a long way from such unity.

What exacerbates this situation is the interlocking of European bank holdings and bonds. Even the Americans are looking askance; their own banks and investment houses are more than a little exposed. The solution is seen in the form of a massive bailout, contingent upon stringent austerity demanded of, as George Bush called them, "the Grecians". All of this has produced a welter of hand wringing at meetings, involving much weeping and flossing of teeth. And when Greece appeared to offer its citizens a referendum on the looming austerity measures, the fear on European faces was palpable. (The referendum has since been rescinded.)

I do believe the situation will right itself. Scared politicians can act, if the scare is big enough. If they don't, well it is a Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis, who sums the situation up well in his brilliant Zorba The Greek. In the movie made from the novel, the Englishman, played by Alan Bates, asks;

"Zorba, do you think the log-moving mechanism will actually work?"

Anthony Quinn, playing Zorba, replies, "Dunno, Boss. It will either work....or be a catastrophe."

Difficult to improve on Zorba.