personal finance guide

It was quite obvious, the EU couldn’t let one of its members fail so badly. But after this rescue of Greece (or at least try), there are many questions to be answered.

Where is the money?

A simple and straight question that Greek government is not able, probably not willing, to answer. Greece has been receiving money from its richer European siblings (France, Germany, Uk), tax payers’ money. The idea was to balance the economies within the EU countries, so the rich countries gave money to the poorer members to develop and strength their economies in order to develop a European market.
What has Greece done with this money? Did they invest it to assure the long term? Or did they just burn it thinking this income stream would never end? Did anyone actually control what they were doing?

Obviously nobody was interested on this while things were fine and an economic downturn seemed not possible. The question remained unanswered, but someone should really try to find out the answer to this very important question:
Where is the money?

Why will this time be different?

Looking forwards that is the most important question. In a country with high corruption level and the corresponding black money flowing around, how will this money change the situation. Will actually Greece take some measures to get their inland affairs in order?

That is what is damaging the country the most: the feeling that despite the money, Greece will keep on doing as it has done now. That implies a cultural change and a lot of effort, it won’t happen overnight, but Greece needs to change on this regard. Corruption and black market has to be eradicated. To improve the economic situation a change of mentality is essential.

When will the richer member get tired of the weakest link?

“A drunk man always says he’ll never drink again”. The patience of the richer EU members is reaching its end, you can feel it when they speak in press conference or in TV shows. Their economic situation is neither outstanding and that makes a powerful cocktail.
While their economies had no problems, they didn’t care much how the poorer countries were spending there money. But now that their economies are also struggling they will track the performance of every cent.

Germany has already stated that the countries unable to save and cut their deficit to the 3% GDP EU requirement may be forced to leave the Euro.

Where does Europe end?

That gets us to the last but not least important question. Where does Europe end?
There are many different cultures and ways to see the world within the old continent, this provokes that the way they work, their entrepreneurial mindset, the efficiency and level of education are very different within what we call Europe. No one says, German are better than Greeks, or French better than Spanish. The question is, will all these different countries be able more or less to create an homogeneous market economy for everyone’s profit and satisfaction?

I honestly doubt it. What do you think?

Tags: EU, Greece