Protest of the Blind

We know that the Greeks are bankrupt. We're pretty sure they won't be getting a cash bailout from the EU. We can be positive that they have been living beyond their means.

So the protests in Athens over the last few days will come as a bit of a surprise, not because they are unexpected, but because of what the Greek people are protesting about.

Usually, if a country doesn't have enough money to maintain the standards of living it has become accustomed to, it will borrow enough money to either invest or to balance it's books with. Unfortunately for the Greeks they have proven themselves irresponsible with large sums of money and as such have no-one to turn to for the kind of sums that they require.

So the fact that the Greek people are campaigning against quite evidently needed money saving and generating measures (such as public sector salary cuts and higher taxes) seems decidedly short-sighted and hot headed.

Surely they should be campaigning not against the measures put in place to correct, but the political forces who made the mistake. Or the people who sat back and enjoyed the good life, without a care in the world for what the politicians were doing with the country's finances. I'm sorry but I don't see how the huge budget deficits the Greek government had been posting could have gone unnoticed.

Going on strike and shutting down schools and hospitals doesn't sound to me like the kind of action needed to convince Angela Merkel or the EU of the country's sufficient stability for a bailout.

I may, however, be joining a similar protest in London soon...