Time flies when your having fun printing copious amounts of fiat paper money out of thin air.
It seems like just yesterday, in which the World was nervously biting their nails, as they watched the Greece credit crisis unfold, with one disaster after the other following in rapid succession.
Riots raged in the streets and Greece was on the verge of anarchy.
It was during this time period, eight years ago, in which I wrote a series of articles, chronicling the madness that was afflicting Greece, showcasing how the European Union was desperately strong arming the government of Greece, in an attempt to get them "back in line" and to keep them in the European Union at all cost.
Well, they succeeded. Greece has not left the EU, but Britain is on its way out, much to the shock of EU officials and to just about anyone else, if you were to tell them eight years ago. Most suspected that the weaker economic countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy would be long gone by now, but alas, that is not the case.
Instead, as I wrote eight long years ago, the European Union could not afford to have Greece leave, lest they risk a cascading effect of one country after the other leaving in rapid succession, hoping to break out of the throttling bureaucratic grasp that is the EU.
This is incredibly unfortunate for the people of Greece, because as I also predicted eight years ago, nothing has changed in any meaningful way for the people of Greece. Their economy is still a disaster by any comparable standard, their backing sector is still in shambles and their debt levels are still astronomically high.
This truly is a tragedy, as this could of long ago been resolved if the politicians of Greece were not simple puppets and had the stomach that was needed eight years ago to take their "medicine" and the pain that would of come along with defaulting on their debt, returning to the Drachma and beginning the hard process of recovery, with a clean slate.
Undoubtedly, they would of been in a much better position than they now find themselves today.
Rather, they chose the "easy" route, the path of extend and pretend, kicking the now gigantic can further down the road, to the point in which we are at now, in which their banking sector is on the verge of collapse once again.
Having fallen roughly 40% throughout the course of his year, the government of Greece is scrambling to find a solution to their problems, of which they have return open handed asking the EU for assistance.
Joining the ranks of Italy and Spain, they are hoping to consolidate their "junk" debt and repackage it, before it sinks the rest of the system with it, as it goes under.
Once again the European Union will eventually have to come in and "save" the day, making the people of Greece even further debt slaves to their highly corrupt system, as they make demands that they know will ultimately not be kept.
The hollowing out of Greece will continue on for now, as it has for the last eight years, fixing nothing, solving nothing.
The can will continue to be kicked down the road, until it can no longer be kicked. Eventually, the well will run dry and the people of Greece will tire of being squeezed by the EU and its un-elected officials.
Until then, expect more QE, more extending, and yes, more pretending. All is not well, the sooner people wake up to this reality, the sooner the problems can be fixed.
- Source, As first seen on the Sprott Money Blog