"They've Succeeded In The Impossible. They've Made Jersey City, New Jersey Look Better Than Greece!"

There is, unfortunately, very little optimism about the critical meeting on Monday, June 22 with Greece and its creditors. There is very little reason to think that the institutions controlling much of Greece’s enormous debt are going to bend on their demands for economic/social reforms in Greece before releasing more cash. And there is even less reason to hope that the rigid ideologues that now run Greece have the slightest intention of implementing reforms that might help Greece but would weaken their political position.

            If the talks fail there is a very good chance that Greeks would rush to pull whatever funds they have left out of the banks, thereby creating the situation that would call for capital controls. Another logical consequence is that Greece would fail to make scheduled payments to the International Monetary Fund and would start on the slippery road to default and possible exit from the Euro.

            A reasonable person might think this is a scenario to be avoided at all costs. It could plunge Greece into the economic unknown and severely intensify the poverty and hardship already suffered by many in the country. But that same reasonable person would be making the same mistake that Greece’s European counterparts have been making for the past five months, i.e. believing that the ruling Syriza party has any interest in compromise or making a mutually beneficial agreement.

            All one had to do is listen closely to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s comments at the opening of the new parliament or the comments of other Syriza MPs and ministers to understand the total commitment to a failed ideology. Various Syriza MPs have said over and over again that the government should never sign a deal and that returning to the drachma with the ensuing economic chaos would be a very good thing. The Minister of Education said a key policy of his ministry would be to eliminate the concept of excellence in education. Who knows? Perhaps in his mind such a thing as educational excellence smacks too much of the dreaded elitism. Maybe he really does think a generation of morons can compete with the Chinese and Indians who have no problem promoting excellence. In his opening speech Tsipras mentioned four times the Greek word roughly translated as equalization. Only now are people realizing that his version of social and economic equalization is to drag the top down, not bring the bottom up. In his brave new world everyone is the same – they’re all desperately poor with no hope for the future. Even today at the 11^th hour Greece’s finance minister Yiannis Varoufakis is saying that he hopes the creditors will fulfil their responsibilities to save Greece and, by the strange extension of his unique logic, all of Europe. Needless to say he failed to say much about Greece’s own responsibility to come up with a realistic compromise.

            In the beginning many in the European Union thought Tsipras’s opening remarks last winter were just part of electioneering. Surely, they thought, he would become more rationale in time, and separate himself from the leftist ideologues in his own party. Wrong. A Greek journalist friend in Brussels made an interesting observation early in the negotiations. “Too many people here think there is a difference between the ‘good’ Tsipras and the ‘bad’ hard left element of the party. They’re wrong. There is no difference at all.”

            Perhaps the most surprising element of all, however, is the inability of very smart people in Greece to mount any opposition to these destructive developments. Where is the broad-based communication program pointing out to ordinary Greeks just how much they will suffer under new drachma regime? Why leave the moral high ground to Syriza? Perhaps there is a fatalistic acceptance of what is considered inevitable.

            I remember a dinner party last fall in Athens when a group of lawyers and businessmen were discussing what would happen if Syriza won the election. Most were modestly hopeful that disaster could be avoided. One former bank executive had a very succinct response to the question. “Train wreck. Huge train wreck. That’s what will happen. Perhaps from the rubble we can build a good economy.” That certainly was a conversation stopper.

            Another businessman, one who pays all his taxes and obeys the country’s labyrinthine regulations was beside himself with anger. “These liars will ruin everything! They are going to turn us into the North Korea of the Aegean. They have no idea of the damage they are causing for generations. Any young person in Greece with an IQ of room temperature will leave.”

            But again, why are these sentiments restricted to private conversations? Where is the leadership of the opposition? It takes more than dry speeches in parliament to counter Syriza’s bombardment of mis-information.

            An exasperated Greek-American who recently moved back to Greece is re-thinking his decision. “These idiots in government are ruining what could be paradise! They have succeeded in something I thought was impossible. They have made Jersey City, New Jersey look better than Greece. That takes talent.”