The austerity measures that were supposed to fix Greece’s problems are dragging down the country’s economy. Stores are closing, tax revenues are falling and unemployment has hit an unbelievable 70 percent in some places. Frustrated workers are threatening to strike back.
The feast of the Assumption of Mary on Aug. 15 is the high point of summer in the Greek Orthodox world. Here in one of the country’s many churches, believers pray to the Virgin for mercy, with many of them falling to their knees.
The newspaper Ta Nea has recommended that the Greek government adopt the very same approach — the country’s leaders have to hope that Mary comes up with a miracle to save Greece from a serious crisis, the paper writes. Without divine intervention, the newspaper suggested, it will be a difficult autumn for the Mediterranean state.
I noted on a number of threads back when the ECB and Europe was trying to bail Greece out that it was an exercise in futility. As I sad then, Greece was broke yesterday, it is broke today and it will broke a year from now. They simply owe more money than they are capable of paying back under even the most optimistic economic scenario.
I said then that the best thing Greece could do (for Greece) would be to bite the bullet and leave the Euro, go back on their own currency and stiff their creditors. Greece will eventually default. The only question is when and how. The current situation demonstrates the practical limits to austerity. There is only so far one can cut before you have really bad consequences. That’s not to say that austerity is not needed here and elsewhere. But austerity alone can not save us anymore than it can save Greece.
When Greece eventually does default (and they will) I fear that it will reignite the, for the moment, dormant sovereign debt crisis.
Finally on a rather small and unrelated note, The Assumption of the Virgin Mary is not a holiday in Greece. The Greek Orthodox Church commemorates the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. The Assumption is a Western religious observance.