My Big Fat Greek Debt Crisis

Greece is suffering from the worst debt crisis in its history. Its two-year bonds yield 23.26%, signifying a total lack of investor confidence in the Mediterranean country's ability to pay its debts. This collapse was brought about by an irresponsible, spendthrift Greek government and a lack of warning from international institutions. Greece industrialized itself based on loans and a bloated public sector made to provide jobs. The corruption in its corporate government, which neutered itself by becoming part of the Eurozone, has resulted in austerity measures being implemented to appease the bankers at the IMF. Unfortunately, these measures ultimately hurt the Greek populace. With an unemployment rate of 15.9% and inflation at 3.9%, many Greeks are out of work while prices continue to rise.

Of course, the bankers in Germany and France would have you believe that the Greek debt crisis was brought about by a spendthrift populace. Such a burden cannot be placed upon the shoulders of a people whose only goal is the pursuit of happiness; it must be placed upon those corrupt leaders who continued to build up sovereign debt without a plan for repayment. It was as if the Greek government had never heard of a rainy day fund - it seemed as though the country's economic expansion would last forever. Unfortunately, that dream was quickly and brutally turned to a nightmare in 2008. The Greek government's foolish policy of consistently holding debt larger than the country's GDP (a problem that America faces imminently) finally turned sour when it was found that corrupt government officials had been hiding Greek's real debt situation by purchasing financial products that could hide the true value of the debt. When this fraud was brought to light, Standard & Poor's, the investment rating company, downgraded Greek bonds to a junk investment.

The fault here lies with the Greek government, the bankers at Goldman Sachs that helped to hide a country's debt problems from its creditors, and the bankers at the IMF that wish to force Greek's government to redeem itself by hurting its citizens. The people must continue to say "NO!" to the government's attempts to shift its financial difficulties onto them after years of lies and embezzlement. If the Europeans truly consider themselves a union, then they will enact job programs for the Greek people and mandate a complete restructuring of the Greek government, including prosecution of the frauds who caused this crisis. Stringent penalties must be imposed for altering financial details in the union, and offending parties should be ostracized as traitors to their countries. It may have taken Greece a few more years to industrialize without debt up to its mountains, but in the end its people would not have borne the burdens created by their incompetent leaders.