We've said before that the British are masters of understatement. Here's a sample from a recent letter to the Financial Times editor.
"Sir, Little in life is certain but when a cohort of academic economists coalesce around a consensus (Letter, February 19), the odds historically seem to favor the opposite."
Discussing the Greek mess--and who doesn't have an opinion these days--the letter continues that "...'democratic demands of citizens' must be respected, but central to the debate on Greece is the implicit democratic bargain that, if voters choose a government, then they are accountable for its actions."
Over the past five years Greece has spurned the opportunity to match Ireland, Spain and Portugal in reforming its economy. Its citizens cannot escape responsibility for that, and as a consequence voters in Germany and many other EU countries seem to be making their own democratic demand that good money should not be thrown after bad.
If Greece would have acted decisively and could now come to the table seeking relief, because despite its best endeavours the debt burden remained too great, then surely there would have been much more sympathy.
However, put simply, does anyone really believe that Greece will reform if is given more money.
In 1866 there was an effort--the Latin Monetary Union (1866-1927)--to unify several European currencies similar to the current union. Belgium, Italy, France and Switzerland created the union and agreed to exchange their currencies for certain weights of gold and silver.
The history of that failure reveals Greek footprints, according to the BBC,
"with its chronically weak economy meant Greek governments responded by decreasing the amount of gold in their coins."
Monetary unions are hardly new. Here's quote from a 2012 article.
Greece is falling out
with its neighbors over their common currency - just as it did about a
century ago. But forging closer bonds through shared currencies rarely
works for long, says historian David Cannadine.
The continuing travails of the Greek economy and the threat
they represent to European Monetary Union may both seem novel and
unprecedented, but in several significant ways, we've been there before.
Far from being a recent innovation, there have been monetary
unions for almost as long as there has been money. But across two and a
half millennia, and whatever varied forms they may have taken, few of
them have endured, which helps explain why they've been so easily and so
largely forgotten.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-
Hello Latvia goodbye Greece.
