Greece is the word is the word that you heard when you heard the word Depression.
The country that first discovered advanced mathematics over 2500 years ago has a math problem. A big one at the intersection of math and money. I'm not sure the Pythagorean theorem is gonna solve this baby.
We started hearing about this Greece problem in 2009, shortly after our own financial crisis. Most of us yawned and said whatever. Not my problem. It's a Europe thing. I gotta fry my own fish. Do I still have a job?
Steps were taken to attempt to solve the problem through bailouts that were pretty much underwritten by the Germans via the European Central Bank. But the basic math problem of too much money being spent and not enough taken in to pay for those expenditures has never been solved. The issue has reappeared time after time after time over the past five years with the politicians doing what they do best--kicking the can, following the can down the road and kicking it again down Perpetuity Street.
Okay, Greece has spent money that they do not have--pretty much like every other country on the face of the earth. We do that here in the U.S.--why is it a crisis over there and not here?
One, it will be a crisis over here eventually. It just hasn't become one yet because we own the world's reserve currency--the dollar--and that allows the U.S. to get away with financial murder for reasons that are beyond the scope of Song and a Story.
Two, it's Greece. I'm reluctant to generalize about any group of people......so I'll let Michael Lewis and Vanity Fair do it for me.
If you want to experience the curious sensation of being dumbfounded, yet laughing and depressed at the same time, please read the Lewis story. Yeah, it was written in 2010 but like all Greek tragedies, it's timeless.
Now that you're suitably dispirited, I hope to provide some emotional equilibrium with a funky little group from Brooklyn.
Lucius is a five piece outfit that formed in 2005. They've got a fashion flair to go with their irresistible pop funk hooks and the mainstream media are taking notice. But don't hold it against them that they're the current fave of NY Times economic columnist Paul Krugman. I guess there's one thing Krugman and I can agree on: Lucius is awesome.
This is a cover of the 1970 Kinks tune, Strangers. Seamlessly stripped down to its essential elements, if you appreciate great harmony, this is heaven: