As a native Greek myself, I will give the readers my view on the Greek elections.
Most Greeks lived on the hog of "foreign borrowed money," and they were stunned when that money was cut off. Then came their public salaries and public pensions reductions. Then came the strict tax enforcements and the tax dodgers had to pay taxes on their reduced income. Worse yet, the European bailout funds go to creditors, while they are left hanged out to dry! And thousands of phony disabilities pensions were re-examined and cut off! Their princely lives on foreign money are over, and the foreign lenders have foreclosed on them! It is a rude awakening, but they needed it badly. Time now to head for a library, open an Aesop Fables book, and read "The Grasshopper and the Ant" story - if they want to avoid a relapse.
Will they? A large sign nailed to a bench in a Greek Athens Square doubts about, and its verse says it all. Here is the English translation: "The politicians mess your life, but you vote for them; then you sit home at your sofa, and you rant against them!" (Source: News Now,(Greece) May 4, 2012) In short: Greek self-inflicted misery - warts and all!
The Greeks used to be traditional night revelers, bragging that "life begins at 11:pm, and ends at 5:am" (at night clubs). Not anymore. Now they sit outside of their porches until midnight, gossiping, blaming their politicians and the European Union (EU), and lament their sudden detour to life within meager means! That is why most of them want to stay in the EU. They still hope for a miracle, but their current nightmare will be long lasting - almost as their years of reckless borrowing and spending!
I have always thought that the Greek pseudo-mania for grandeur and princely living was out of place - given the fact that Greece is a small and poor country. But the Greek politicians borrowed money to satisfy Greeks in exchange for their votes. Now their country is a bankrupted wasteland, and they have descended into a stupor of anger and disbelief. But they own it - fair and square! Nikos Retsos, retired professor
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Nikos Retsos of IL 10:10AM May 05, 2012