so the rich germans and the bankrupt greeks are at each others' throats over in euroland, and it's beginning to get really entertaining.
in case you haven't been keeping up with the whole greek-crisis thing, allow me to give you the quick-and-dirty:
basically, fully a third of the greek workforce is either employed by and/or otherwise sucking off the tit of the greek government, and most of the other two-thirds are heavily and luxuriantly unionized, with all that implies. astonishingly, this fiscal model has proven to be unsustainable, and everybody seems to understand this but the greeks.
the hardworking, efficient germans are tired of carrying the soft, decadent greeks [not to mention various and sundry other profligate and ungrateful mediterranean countries whom they feel misrepresented their dire financial straits in order to qualify for entry into the EU in the first place] and are balking at bailing 'em outta what they see is a mess of their own making.
this sentiment recently found expression in the form of the following german magazine cover:
the headline roughly translates as "Liar in the Euro Family"--and yeah, that would be a greek flag wrapped around miz venus.
needless to say, this enraged the greeks--who, not to be outdone, upped the ante by responding that what they actually wanted from germany was not a bail-out, but a return of all the goddam gold they'd stolen back in WWII.
this sentiment found expression in the following newspaper article, which featured a photograph of the goddess victoria atop the siegessaeule in berlin, only she's holding a ...
now, this is multi-culturalism, people.
4 comments:
I do not think you are talking about multiculturalism.
What you are talking about is an
internecine feud between two countries that, unfortunately for both, are too close than either would prefer to be.
Mistakes were made in the rush to the euro. But, the Greeks cooked the books. It was a government of Enron. So now they are a little upset and bringing up some parts of the German past in a hurtful way.
This will be resolved, but not after a lot of angry shouting matches.
noblesavage: well, you certainly managed to suck all the joy outta that little story--i'll stick with my version, thanks.
Keep in mind that my German heritage prevents any objectivity here.
trust me, i got it--the whole teutonic/humorless thing came totally shining through.
Post a Comment