It’s always a Balkan country that does it. In 1914, almost one hundred years ago, it was Serbia. Now in 2011 it’s Greece. Everyone has alliances with each other against each other. Just think of that in economic terms. Banks in more prosperous countries like Germany and the Netherlands are making sure that their banks don’t loan money to the pigs in questionable countries like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and now even Italy — the third largest economy in the Euro Zone. The tensions are so great that some are prognosticating that one or more countries will leave the Euro Zone and the whole currency union will split apart.
“Peace negotiations”, or rather financial summits and debt talks, haven’t produced a workable settlement to save the Greek economy. More austerity measures are necessary, and there was almost a civil war implementing the ones that were just passed two weeks ago.
The way is now cleared for Germany’s idea of a “selective default”. But that will mean at the very least that the Euro Zone either won’t survive at all or it will emerge from the ashes of economic turmoil something very different from what it was before.