Conundrum

Years ago a dogma in parochial school was that God never burdened you with more than you could bear. I thought of that when I saw a man in a motorcycle accident in the hall of an emergency room. His arm had been severed below the elbow, the immediate problems had been solved with bandages and clamps. He was stable, full of pain meds and waiting for an eventual definitive procedure. He sat in a wheelchair at the door of his room and spoke neighborly to everyone that passed by. "Hey," he would say quizzically, "I think there might be something wrong with my arm." I learned then if by chance God burdened you with more than you could bear, you underestimated the challenge.

The country looks today like that man with the injured arm, horrified beyond understanding. We are walking around like oblivious teenagers, stepping over obvious but unseen laundry. For years the governments of the West have been increasing the benefits to its citizens, and watching companies do the same with their employees, with the full knowledge that these circumstances could not continue and they never made a sound. Neither did we. Now we are alarmed. There is too much money being printed and not enough to pay for what has been promised. Who's to blame? And how are we going to solve this? Solve problem one and exacerbate problem two? Solve problem two and exacerbate problem one?

The Greek riots are a fascinating response to the question. What would make them happy? Greece has no monetary source (vs. the Americans who can print it) so they have to go to some other source, like Germany, who has been more prudent. That makes Germany at risk; they are now intimate with Greece. The Greeks still riot and now the Germans are furious. And both are furious at the effort to bail out the banks who only took the loans the European states offered so they could pay the impossible benefits. What does the citizen expect? Will he chant "Stop paying my outrageous benefits with cheaper currency!"?

This is a serious conundrum--cheap money or fewer benefits--but the ending is the same: A decline in living standards. Cheap money buys less; fewer benefits buy less.

No riot will change it.