np - The Financial Folly of Fairness

[Richard Fiero]

It's not clear to me why the Atlantic article makes any sense.
1. The bailout is not to the Greek people but to German and French banks.
2. Greece buys more than it produces and should devalue its currency 
making imports into Greece more expensive and encouraging domestic 
production. That would make Greek exports more competitive. The 
problem is that the Euro is not a Greek sovereign currency.
3. Greek austerity will put German workers out of work.

David Morris wrote:
>http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/the-financial-folly-of-fairness/248216/
>
>"It is obvious that either Germany is going to have to guarantee
>massive ongoing fiscal transfers to the PIIGS, or Greece and probably
>Italy are going to have to undergo a massively contractionary
>austerity program, or they will have to leave the euro.  These three
>choice exclude both each other, and any other mathematically possible
>outcome."
>
>[...]
>
>"You can try to explain to all of them why their sense of outrage is
>rather beside the point in the face of a looming financial explosion
>which is going to make everyone much worse off if it reaches critical
>mass.  You can also go home and try to explain this to your microwave,
>for all the good it will do.  As anyone who has ever spoken to a five
>year old knows, the sense of fairness is one of the most primal and
>intractable cognitive instincts we have.  In the best of times, it
>takes years to change public opinion about what is fair.  These are
>not the best of times, and we do not have years."
>
>"I am very much afraid that the euro zone is about to plunge us into
>phase two of the global financial crisis--and that as with the Great
>Depression, phase two may be even worse than the dismal years we've
>just endured.    In search of fairness, we may all get a lot more
>justice than any of us really wants."