Buffoon leaders... and how we milked the EU, by veteran Greek columnist and commentator

[DFW]

21. They don't even know what they're voting for.

The referendum was so convoluted in its language that most Greeks didn't even know what they were voting for. Finding honest politicians in Greece is almost a contradiction in terms. Anyone saying they have a simple solution is lying, and there is no one running for office telling the people the truth--that basically the governments in power up to now have bankrupted the country, and they are screwed for the short term.

What the Greeks SHOULD do is vote out their whole government and start fresh with some people who have never been in office before, and who are not academics, who tend to prance around with theories and then punish others when their theories don't work (e.g. France). But they won't.

Austerity failed because the Greeks don't control their own currency. They needed some deficit spending which they couldn't do if they couldn't devalue their currency. They would have muddled along if they had never joined the Euro. Some of them thought that if they had Germany's currency that overnight they would become Germany. It doesn't work like that. If Germany had adopted Greece's economics, i.e. no tax collection, retirement at 55 with generous pensions, etc., Germany would have gone belly-up, too. Food, energy, housing, someone has to make that stuff, and it doesn't materialize by government decree or confiscation of a few rich guys' yachts.

Our (almost nextdoor-) neighbors here in Düsseldorf are Greek, and they just shake their heads in resignation, and are happy they live here in Germany.