Longtime First Draft reader, online pal, and fellow blogger Dan of Pruning Shears fame asked me the other day for my take on the Greek clusterfuck, my word, not his. That’s what it is: a Pure-D clusterfuck that has been mishandled by the political and financial leadership of both the EU and Greece.

Dan wrote a very thoughtful post about the Greek crisis. Here’s an extended excerpt:

I’m theoretically massively in favor of Grexit. Greece is now in the fifth year of a Depression and austerity budgeting has created unconscionable human suffering. Dump the bastards, make them eat their losses, crank up the printing presses, shove handful after handful of drachmas into every Greek’s pockets, export the hell out of your products with your newly-cheap currency, and welcome vacationers across the continent for the same reason. Take a short term hit in order to end the vicious cycle of budget cuts and decreased revenues, and re-assert democratic control of the nation. Oxi!

But again, the devil is in the details – and revolutions usually don’t bother too much with anything outside the big picture. It doesn’t seem very wise to simply postulate the existence of engaged and competent leadership, available social infrastructure (like a large and well prepared civil servant class), etc. There are a multitude of factors that have to line up in order to avoid long term, widespread misery. From the outside none of that can be measured, and maybe not from the inside either. It’s like not knowing the width of a chasm until after you’ve jumped.

Well said, Dan. People need to exercise some impulse control right now. My belated take on this mess is coming up after the break.

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