The saga in Greece keeps on going and it's probably not going to quiet down any time soon.

The Greek politicians (and many Greeks) are always trying to kick the can down the road to deal with problems another day.

They are victims of listening to Keynes who said that we are all dead in the long run. That may be true for Keynes now, but the long run is here for people living in Greece. They can keep trying to kick the can, but the suffering is already here and getting worse.

So the Greek politicians and the rest of the politicians of the European Union play this pretend game that Greece will make good on its debts, if just given a bit more time to get things organized.

If a country (or a person) is in over its head in debt, the answer isn’t to issue more debt. It isn’t going to make the problem easier to solve down the road, except perhaps in filing for bankruptcy.

Greece is a massive welfare state and it's getting to the point where it is unsafe to have any significant wealth in the country that is within the grasp of the government and its welfare supporters.

It also seems that most of the financial crises of recent times end up involving banks and other financial institutions. When the U.S. economy fell in late 2008, it was the big banks and other financial institutions that received most of the bailout money.

In 2013, the small country of Cyprus made big news with its “bail-in”, where the government took depositors’ money directly from bank accounts. It was originally going to apply to almost everyone there, but a severe backlash resulted in wealthier individuals getting hit with the confiscation.

With that story still fresh in people’s minds, particularly in debt-ridden Europe, many Greeks are fearful of something similar happening there. They are right to be fearful of this possibility.

Does Germany Support a Greek Bail-In?

In many ways, the future of the European Union lies with two countries: Germany and Greece. Greece is the welfare state wanting more handouts and bailouts. Germany is the wealthy, productive nation, although this is just in relative terms. Germany could easily be called a welfare state, too.

Greeks resent Germans for trying to tell them how to live (i.e. austerity). Germans resent Greeks for being lazy and wanting more handouts. Of course, these are just generalizations, but this is the general feeling.

German citizens do not want to be taxed, directly or indirectly, to fund the unproductive habits of the Greeks. This is certainly understandable.

Now the German Economics Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, has offered for Germany to freeze German bank accounts for wealthy Greek citizens who supposedly owe taxes to the Greek government.

In Greece, taxes are quite oppressive. They usually are in a giant welfare state. And many Greeks dispute having to pay high taxes to pay for government employees and other welfare recipients.

In other words, there may be a lot of wealthy Greeks accused of some kind of tax fraud. Who gets to decide this? It would be the ones collecting the money.

This may be a solution for Germany in helping to solve the Greece problem. It is becoming more evident that German officials would probably support some kind of Greek bail-in. But Germany is insisting that the Greek government must accept previously agreed upon reforms if it is going to freeze the bank assets of wealthy Greeks.

German officials are trying to have it both ways. They want to keep Greece in the union and paying the interest on its debts, but they don’t want to have to tell their citizens that they will be helping to bail out the Greeks. So German officials would be happy with a Greek bail-in. And they would also be happy to turn over assets of wealthy Greeks who put their money in German banks.

Where is a Greek person with any significant wealth supposed to go? He can’t trust the Greek banks for obvious reasons. Now he can’t trust German banks. Even if you aren’t guilty of tax fraud, are you sure you won’t be accused of it?

If I were a Greek citizen living in Greece, I would be trying to move far away with my assets. If that isn’t possible, I would be looking to buy some physical gold or something else that isn’t vulnerable to the financial system.

If we see another bank bail-in – this time in Greece – at what point are people going to wake up and realize that their money is not safe anywhere? At what point are people going to start buying physical assets such as gold, silver, and platinum?

I don’t know if there is going to be a confiscation of assets in Greek banks (or other banks), but I wouldn’t bet against it. This may be one thing that German officials and Greek officials agree on.