Canadians ignore the meltdown of Greece within the European Union at their peril. The single biggest problem underpinning the Greek crisis is the unwillingness of too many to single out the worst culprits in this mess: namely the Greek citizens themselves.
So steadfast are the Greeks in their belief that they should remain recipients of what might well be the most profligate welfare state in Europe, they’re more than happy to riot, oblivious to the fact that it’s the taxpayers of nations like Germany and Denmark who are footing the bill for all that the Greeks seem to consider sacred.
It’s more vindication for Margaret Thatcher, who fought to keep Greece out of the EU on the basis that Greece would be a constant drain on the treasuries of other countries in the European Union.
Some want to blame this problem on European banks for lending money to the Greek government over the last decade. This is just plain wrong.
Firstly, the EU overlords (and overlords is the correct word) worked very hard to make it impossible for banks to deny loans to the Greeks. Banks were warned that they could be excluded from participating in less risky government banking ventures with the more stable European governments.
Worse, those bonds were issued under false pretences. Year in and year out, the Greek government painted a financial picture that bore as much resemblance to financial reality as the Star Wars Trilogy does to a documentary on space travel.
Worse, as Thatcher warned, the Greek response to the massive influx of ill-gotten EU funds was to go on a massive spending binge.
Since entering the EU in 2000, Greek civil servants have seen their wages triple while their workload has shrunk via an attendant expansion of the government workforce.
Not only have the Greeks fattened government payrolls, they have polished and gilded their public sector pension plan, and bestowed upon inexplicably select groups a diamond-studded pension plan.
The net result is that, in a country with a very modest industrial and tax base, the average government employee retires at the ripe old age of 53. This is further complicated by the innate tendency of the Greeks to avoid paying income taxes. Income tax evasion cuts across all income groups, from dock workers, barbers, and plumbers all the way up to doctors, lawyers and even politicians.
All this money is lifted from the pay packets and savings accounts of more industrious Europeans.
This pattern is set to repeat in two other Southern European countries well known for graft and corruption, yet somehow the Germans and the banks are being made the bad guys in all this.
But here’s where the rubber really meets the road for you and me: The EU has a scary resemblance to our own social justice scheme called “equalization.” I won’t mention any names but the initials of Canada’s counterpart to Greece are Quebec.
We can keep equalization as it is or we can change the formula now, before it gets too late. Quebec’s fiscal problems have the potential to destroy Confederation unless we nip them in the bud, and giving them more of our money is not the way to do it.
Bill Greenwood is a local freelance writer.