07:50 – Sporadic rain with thunder from yesterday evening through the small hours this morning. During the loudest thunder at around 0300, Colin bravely jumped up on the bed and forced his way up near the head, where he curled up into a small dogball to protect Barbara and me. We ended up getting 0.62 inch total, which was badly needed.
The Greek farce continues, with all of the news outlets speculating about whether or not Greece will default and leave the euro. The reality of course, is that Greece will default. Greece has done nothing but default for most of the last 150 years. Most recently, in 2012, Greece committed the largest sovereign default in history. Greece has been bankrupt ever since it joined the euro, and is now is the position of begging additional loans to make the payments on the loans that it already has. It’s on the hook now for hundreds of billions of euros in “loans”, 60% of which are held by the IMF, EU, and ECB, AKA the taxpayers. Basically, Greeks have for decades been living far above their means, depending on other to subsidize their lifestyle. Others are no longer willing to do that, and this is all ending badly, as was predictable and predicted. Europhiles are trying to kick the can a bit farther down the road, but they’ve run out of options.
Neither the Germans nor anyone else cares about the Greeks. That ship sailed long ago. Now it’s just a question of how to get out of this mess as cleanly as possible, and the hell with the Greeks. The Greeks, meanwhile, are perfectly aware that their economy long ago flat-lined, and are determined to continue forcing the rest of the EU to subsidize their lifestyle by threatening to blow up the eurozone if the welfare payments don’t continue. Tsipras isn’t bluffing, and neither are the Troika. There’s no way this can end well.