Why Greeks are spittin' mad spending other people's money

The Greek people are spittin' mad spending other people's money, and if you had spent other people's money as long and as profligately as the Greeks did, you'd be plenty angry, too! Consider if you get something for nothing for a long period of time. Oh, technically, the Greek people got loans, but these loans were refinanced, payment periods extended, and new loans came in to cover old indebtedness. While not technically something for nothing, in a practical sense, Greeks did get something for nothing for many years. The division of labor was as follows: France and especially Germany earned money, and Greece and a few other countries spent it.

It was all working perfectly fine until the Europeans, especially the Germans, started imposing more and more conditions on the money. How does that work when you effectively give out something for nothing for years, and then start imposing conditions? And their conditions were ridiculous! 1) They demanded that the Greek government not spend more than it took in through taxes. That's austere! How could you expect government to do that? 2) They required the Greek government to loosen work requirements and regulations to make it easier to start businesses. But Greek businesses needed those requirements to protect themselves from unnecessary and excessive competition. 3) Lenders forced the Greek government to reduce payments to pensioners. Some might say that previous and temporary political classes bought votes by promising pensions that were unsustainable and way above the norm for Eastern Europe. But even if Greek pensions are two or three times as much as pensions in the rest of Eastern Europe, do we really want to see a spectacle of retired government workers, who produced so much for the economy, denied what they think is their proper share of German taxpayers’ money? 4) Lenders also required the Greek government to make payments on their debts. That was too much. The Greek government never expected that it would have to do that. This is why austerity is so unpopular in Greece. For five years the Europeans have been pressuring Greece to balance its budget and prioritize its payments. What government could exist like that? In fact, I'm sure many Greeks believe that the fault lies with the Europeans. It was the Europeans who lent this money to the Greeks. They should have known that the Greeks could never repay it. It is the fault of the Europeans for agreeing to Greek requests for this money when they should have said no. We have similar kinds of anger in America. "Predatory lenders" were said to be responsible for the housing crisis. They maliciously lent money to people who had no ability to repay their loans. The fault was not with the people who agreed to take the loans, who, after all, have no moral responsibility to borrow only what they can reasonably reply. Nor is the fault with the government for forcing the lenders to make the loans (through laws like the Community Reinvestment Act). By process of elimination, that leaves the fault with the people actually giving the money. Whenever money is given out for free, or lent out and there is a default, the fault lies with the person or entity giving the money. That's because giving something out for free or on easy terms creates an expectation that the recipient has no obligations. If you give a complete stranger $10 every day for a year, and then stop after a year, he will get very angry with you, even though you have no obligation to give any more. That's why the Greeks are angry. Now that they have effectively rejected the euro, they can go back to their own currency, the drachma. All they need is a lot of ink and a lot of paper and printing presses, and in a matter of days they can pay off all their pensioners and salaries. Of course, the money will be nearly worthless, but at least everyone will be equal, and the Greek people can finally get what they voted for, time and time again, in election after election. This article was produced by NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.