I think the "path of Greece" thing is a little, er, demagogic and hyperbolic. Perhaps you could settle for parabolic and just say "path of Eire?"
No, seriously. Comparisons to Greece are fast becoming the Godwin's law of what I now see is being called the "Great Recession." (I'll take a Lesser Depression and a bottle of chlorpromazine, please.)
There are certainly interesting parallels to be drawn. I think our institutional obsession with owning a nuclear deterrent has similarities with Greek military spending, although at least the Greeks use Turkey as an excuse -- all we've got is a dimwit argument that we'd no longer be a permanent member of the UN Security Council. (Uganda, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Nigeria and Lebanon presently sit alongside us: w00t!) One might argue that the fear of financiers fleeing the country is almost as paralysing as the Greek fear of the plutocrats taking their money offshore.
In the end, however, it's hard (but as ever, not impossible) to see how the UK could cock things up quite as badly as Greece.
One other point on the central issue: brain-dead headlines in the media, plus the usual torrent of ill-thought-out opinion on the Internet from people ... er, like me ... who wouldn't have had a voice ten years ago, do not really add up to a convincing case for schizophrenia on this topic.
On the other hand, they might very well amplify the natural latent stupidity of mankind to the point where we really are schizophrenic. Isn't technology wonderful?
Grecian 2010
No, seriously. Comparisons to Greece are fast becoming the Godwin's law of what I now see is being called the "Great Recession." (I'll take a Lesser Depression and a bottle of chlorpromazine, please.)
There are certainly interesting parallels to be drawn. I think our institutional obsession with owning a nuclear deterrent has similarities with Greek military spending, although at least the Greeks use Turkey as an excuse -- all we've got is a dimwit argument that we'd no longer be a permanent member of the UN Security Council. (Uganda, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Nigeria and Lebanon presently sit alongside us: w00t!) One might argue that the fear of financiers fleeing the country is almost as paralysing as the Greek fear of the plutocrats taking their money offshore.
In the end, however, it's hard (but as ever, not impossible) to see how the UK could cock things up quite as badly as Greece.
One other point on the central issue: brain-dead headlines in the media, plus the usual torrent of ill-thought-out opinion on the Internet from people ... er, like me ... who wouldn't have had a voice ten years ago, do not really add up to a convincing case for schizophrenia on this topic.
On the other hand, they might very well amplify the natural latent stupidity of mankind to the point where we really are schizophrenic. Isn't technology wonderful?