By Tarun Kumar G. Singhal
Raman Jokhakar Chartered Accountants
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Jean Paul Getty, in the 1950s the wealthiest person on the planet, said, “If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.” Shorn of jargon, that is the deal Europe made with Greece. Europe will pump in another €86 billion over time into Greece, in return for promises to reform. How exactly Greece will reform is unknown. It has a culture of high tax avoidance, low retirement age, lavish pensions and an oligarchy that controls much of its economy and media. It also has little or no industry and relies largely on tourism and farm exports to earn foreign exchange. Have you read a manufacturing label that says ‘Made in Greece’? Yet, for many reasons, it cannot be ejected from the eurozone. Greeks feel they have been dealt a bad hand by Europe and global capital. So they voted for a Left government led by Alexis Tsipras, who vowed an end of five years of ‘austerity’. Tsipras now has the tough task of selling ‘reform’ to his voters. Europe is hostage to Greece, whose economy is tiny but heritage is immense. Aristotle, Socrates and Plato taught it civilisation. Euclid is the father of geometry. Athens was the seat of culture; Sparta the nursery of warriors.
Yet, Greek culture cannot be a financial band-aid. The idea of a eurozone, where states have no monetary policy but only fiscal and other policy widgets, has been challenged. This time, Greece has stared down its bankers by Getty’s logic. The next time might be different. And policymakers in India, where the economy is slowing, consumption and investment lacklustre and banks are saddled with bad debt, should take note: Greek tragedies might overwhelm Kalidasa’s epic tales of love.
(Source: Editorial in The Economic Times dated 14-07-2015.)
