But the heart cannot not but falter

In The zeitgeist where anything is possible until it no longer is, , regarding a fellow who had made a series of bad career and life choices while in the midst of economic plenty, which then came back to haunt him later as he aged, I noted that.

You feel sorry for him. You wish his circumstances were better. But there is no moral need to do anything for him and there are many policy reasons why you shouldn't do much more for him. Perhaps the most that can be done is to appreciate him as the embodiment of a cautionary tale of which all ought to take heed. We are back to Aesop's fables. Even as a child, I understood that the grasshopper was the architect of his own tragedy but I always felt a little sorry for him anyway.

Something similar is going on with the Greek story. Many try and dress up the tale as one of the greedy German Bankers, the evil IMF or the incompetent European Union. Yes, everyone had a little bit to contribute to the current impasse. But ultimately, and fundamentally, the Greeks over several decades chose to elect governments who were corrupt and incompetent, promising future financial goodies that could never come to pass, spending borrowed money like a drunken sailor. Everyone was cheating on their taxes, lying about their circumstances, gaming the system and living high on the hog.

Eventually they ran out of other people's money. The most recent IMF report makes clear that for a couple of years, the Greeks had begun to make progress adjusting to their new economic realities, as reported in: The IMF's sad story: Greek tragedy from The Economist. But then the electorate threw up their hands and elected a left leaning, populist government.

When you choose socialists or populists to resolve a financial crisis, you are choosing not to solve the problem at all. You are throwing the die and hoping something good happens. All hope and no planning.

You have to feel sorry for the Greeks but what is there to be done until they make good choices themselves? Just as with McPherson, you have to feel sorry for him, but you can't see any other outcome that is right and fair. But the heart cannot not but falter when you see pictures like this, a citizen contemplating the collapse of a lifetime's hopes and expectations.

There were similar such pictures at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Millions of people caught up in a failed system looking at wrenching changes before things can come right.