Germany Must Decide: When and How Will Greece Leave the Euro?
By Bill Frezza
After years of self-delusion, European central planners are being gobsmacked by reality. When you clear away the fog spewed by the traveling circus of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, two crucial questions need to be answered. First, will Greece be ejected from the euro now or later? Second, will the Grexit be orderly or disorderly? Everything else is narrative management.
For their part, the Greek people have spoken. By electing Syriza they’ve made it clear that they not only refuse to consider the one thing that could save their economy–which is to repeal job-killing labor regulations and licensing laws–but they won’t even tolerate pretend reforms. Greeks, proud as they are, would rather all starve than allow the country’s few remaining entrepreneurs to get the economy moving again by starting businesses without having to stuff bureaucrats’ pockets full of fakelaki.
If one principle informs the communist professors who now occupy the Greek cabinet, it is Lenin’s maxim that “the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Varoufakis recently proposed to exchange outstanding Greek debt for perpetual bonds with no maturity date and payment schedules tied to future growth. This scheme is as brilliant as it is laughable. In effect, Varoufakis is telling creditors that if they want to go on as before in order to avoid recognizing their losses, he is happy to spend their money rehiring armies of do-nothing Greek civil servants. And, oh, how about a bridge loan so we can work out the details?
If you don’t back me up, he threatens—pause for dramatic effect—“When I return home tonight I will find a country where the third-largest party is not a neo-Nazi party, but a Nazi party.”
To read the rest of the column click here.
Bill Frezza 
Leave a Reply