It was immediately obvious that Germany was being used, but in the press not so obvious in this strange interdependent relationship that Germany also got political, cultural, and economic benefits from loaning hundreds of billions of euros to buy German things to those who were only able to pay (for a while) the interest on the rising debt.<\/p>\n
When the EU splits up, whether politically or fiscally or both, Germany will eat a lot of debt, will become the object of regional suspicion and fear, will no longer be seen as the long-suffering and unfairly caricatured sober and judicious linchpin, and will lose a lot of its easy markets and EU protectionism under its prior musical chairs sort of mercantilism. Already the fickle world press is turning from stories of conniving Greeks who finagle retirement at 50 and welch on their taxes to noble destitute Greeks who are reduced to scrounging for aspirin disappearing from their pharmacies, while Germans have gone from thrifty and admirable workaholics to the new Gauleiters.<\/p>\n
In 1983, one subdued farmer told me, \u201cI shouldn\u2019t have borrowed the money\u201d; by 1985, he beamed, \u201cWell, they shouldn\u2019t have lent me the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
\u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s \u00a0The Corner Watching the current EU dramatics over southern Mediterranean debt reminds me of the farm crisis of 1982\u20134 when lots of big farming concerns around here defaulted on what they owed banks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[203,49],"tags":[42,251,1050,149,331,1056],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-hn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":750,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-eu-at-the-abyss\/","url_meta":{"origin":1077,"position":0},"title":"The EU at the Abyss","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Over the last four years, almost all of the news about the shaky European Union has been financial, with some attention paid to southern Mediterranean tabloid attacks on Germany and the German media counter-stereotyping of irresponsible siesta-loving sunny Mediterraneans. But as Greece falls apart,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/europe\/economy-europe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10306,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/europe-is-still-ailing\/","url_meta":{"origin":1077,"position":1},"title":"Europe Is Still Ailing","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Strategika by Bruce Thornton Tuesday, June 20, 2017 Image credit:\u00a0Poster Collection, GE 2678, Hoover Institution Archives. Recent elections in France, the Netherlands, and Austria, in which Eurosceptic populist and patriotic parties did poorly in national elections, suggest to some that the EU is still strong despite Britain\u2019s vote to leave\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Strategika"","block_context":{"text":"Strategika","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/strategika\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8502,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/greek-default\/","url_meta":{"origin":1077,"position":2},"title":"Greek Default","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"For almost six years Greece has been on the cusp of financial disaster. by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online For almost six years Greece has been on the cusp of financial disaster. Its Northern European and international creditors have extended loans, suspended interest payments, and forgiven some debt. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Europe"","block_context":{"text":"Europe","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/europe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"\"Death by Euro\" street art in Athens. (Aris Messinis\/AFP\/Getty)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/death-by-euro-500x292.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1932,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-end-of-the-euro\/","url_meta":{"origin":1077,"position":3},"title":"The End of the Euro?","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Good riddance to a bad idea. by Bruce S. Thornton Defining Ideas The champions of the European Union once touted it as a \u201cbold new experiment in living\u201d and \u201cthe best hope in an insecure age.\u201d But these days \u201cfear is coursing through the corridors of Brussels,\u201d as the BBC\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The EU"","block_context":{"text":"The EU","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/europe\/the-eu\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8681,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-three-crucial-factors-to-maintaining-the-peace-in-europe\/","url_meta":{"origin":1077,"position":4},"title":"The Three Crucial Factors to Maintaining the Peace in Europe","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online The bailed-out Greeks are still broke. Now their islands are flooded with a horde of migrants from the Middle East and Africa. Spain, Portugal, and Italy are almost in the same boat. Their shared Mediterranean traditions \u2014 and vulnerabilities \u2014 are far different\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The World"","block_context":{"text":"The World","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via NRO","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/european-culture-in-danger-from-migrants-500x292.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":954,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/greek-tragedies\/","url_meta":{"origin":1077,"position":5},"title":"Greek Tragedies","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"br Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner There are a lot of new twists to the old story of massive demonstrations in Greece. This is the first time in my life (I first went to Greece in 1973) that I can remember Greek rioting and demonstrations that were not anti-American. Oh,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Greece"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/europe\/greece\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1078,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions\/1078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}