COTW: The Price of 'Fiscal Stability'

Greece has not fallen off US Person's radar. So far, the EU has propped up the country's failed economy with 149 billions of Euros. But the quid pro quo of fiscal austerity has inflicted a high price on Greeks, as this chart shows:

Greece's unemployment now matches Spain's in severity at 26.6%, double the EU average of 11.7%. Sixty percent of young people are unemployed. The Greek economy has undergone a contraction of €70 billion according to opposition leader Alexis Tsipras, and the social consequences are serious. Middle class citizens making more than $26,000 a year now have to pay up to 42% of their annual salary in taxes to keep revenue commitments to creditors. There is unrest on both ends of the political spectrum. Labor has called national strikes. The latest metrorail strike shut down Athens. Neo-fascist gangs roam the streets expressing their displeasure with a coalition government that has complied with international financiers demands for 'fiscal stability'. Their hate violence towards immigrants is growing. Greece is proving to be the acid test for the survival of the European Union. Many economists, among them Alan Greenspan, predicted the Union would breakup when an asymmetrical crisis affected economies not fully integrated with a common fiscal policy. Europeans, notably Germany, have had to grudgingly write checks to rescue debt ridden Greece. Nonetheless, there are reasons to want the EU to put its fiscal house in order. As a Turkish minister recently put it, Turkey wants to be a full member despite its problems because the European Union "is the world's biggest peace project".