If somebody were to turn over a very large amount of cash to me, I could not only pay off all my credit card debt and the mortgage, but buy a new, much larger apartment, with a washer and dryer, and a big pantry with a chest freezer.
Then I'd do my basic shopping at Costco, and buy a whole free-range chestnut-fed pig from a gentleman farmer and make my own sausage, and that's not all. I'd start getting really
good clothes—especially shoes—so that I wouldn't have to buy them so often, and season tickets to the opera and the Philharmonic, and memberships in all the museums. Jesus, being rich can save you so much money!
All the people with power keep telling us that a national economy is just like a family, meaning that the nation has to sit down around the kitchen table (assuming it can afford [jump]
an eat-in kitchen!) every month and figure out how to stretch its income around its priorities, and be sure to pay up those credit cards before it thinks about going on a vacation ("What do you think about the Persian gulf for spring break this year, nation?" "Come on, Dad, we always go there!"), etc. And all the smart people keep telling us that that's a stupid analogy. But I think we can find a compromise position between these two extremes: Yes, it's a stupid analogy, but it's fun.
If Greece were a family, it would be one on a street that's been gentrifying over the years, as the neighbors get wealthier and snootier while they themselves have not, but they still get their kids those $120 sneakers and the wide-screen TV and the golf club membership, and put in a pool so they can invite everyone over for a barbecue, and get into massive debt, so the homeowners' association decides to take away their cars until they pay up; so that they won't be able to go to work, so that in effect they won't be able to pay anyway.
Why does the homeowners' association adopt this apparently self-defeating policy? Because they are such deeply moral people. They may want their money back, but even more do they long for the justice that affirms the rightness of their world view. If Greece were to prosper, it would be as if God doesn't even care whether you pay all your bills on time and maintain a special savings account that will pay little Corky's tuition at Amherst; it would be as if Greece were just as good as you. So they throw Greece into debtors' prison, with a sigh.
If they really wanted their money back, they would not merely reschedule the payments on easy terms with no new collateral, they'd give Greece some money outright—seed money, startup capital—and watch it get rich, the way they got their own start from the US after the war in France and Germany and Italy and Japan and Taiwan. Instead of loaning to Greece, they could invest in it, that is stop obsessing over the principal and think about perpetual dividends. But they just can't lower themselves to treating Greece with respect: it's what you call conservatism at the macroeconomic level.
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| Sausage. From Free-Extras (?). |
Then I'd do my basic shopping at Costco, and buy a whole free-range chestnut-fed pig from a gentleman farmer and make my own sausage, and that's not all. I'd start getting really
good clothes—especially shoes—so that I wouldn't have to buy them so often, and season tickets to the opera and the Philharmonic, and memberships in all the museums. Jesus, being rich can save you so much money!
All the people with power keep telling us that a national economy is just like a family, meaning that the nation has to sit down around the kitchen table (assuming it can afford [jump]
an eat-in kitchen!) every month and figure out how to stretch its income around its priorities, and be sure to pay up those credit cards before it thinks about going on a vacation ("What do you think about the Persian gulf for spring break this year, nation?" "Come on, Dad, we always go there!"), etc. And all the smart people keep telling us that that's a stupid analogy. But I think we can find a compromise position between these two extremes: Yes, it's a stupid analogy, but it's fun.
If Greece were a family, it would be one on a street that's been gentrifying over the years, as the neighbors get wealthier and snootier while they themselves have not, but they still get their kids those $120 sneakers and the wide-screen TV and the golf club membership, and put in a pool so they can invite everyone over for a barbecue, and get into massive debt, so the homeowners' association decides to take away their cars until they pay up; so that they won't be able to go to work, so that in effect they won't be able to pay anyway.
Why does the homeowners' association adopt this apparently self-defeating policy? Because they are such deeply moral people. They may want their money back, but even more do they long for the justice that affirms the rightness of their world view. If Greece were to prosper, it would be as if God doesn't even care whether you pay all your bills on time and maintain a special savings account that will pay little Corky's tuition at Amherst; it would be as if Greece were just as good as you. So they throw Greece into debtors' prison, with a sigh.
If they really wanted their money back, they would not merely reschedule the payments on easy terms with no new collateral, they'd give Greece some money outright—seed money, startup capital—and watch it get rich, the way they got their own start from the US after the war in France and Germany and Italy and Japan and Taiwan. Instead of loaning to Greece, they could invest in it, that is stop obsessing over the principal and think about perpetual dividends. But they just can't lower themselves to treating Greece with respect: it's what you call conservatism at the macroeconomic level.
A-and say, Mr. Ant? I know I've been spending those summer evenings playing my guitar when I said I'd use my off-hours to do legal proofreading, but it's because I had this idea for an album? Also you can't imagine how boring legal proofreading is.
Your old pal,
Grasshopper
