Is Greece The Annoying ‘Stoner Friend' Of The World?

As European governments spend the day desperately pleading with banks and insurers to gives the thumbs up to a second Greek bailout, one begins to wonder exactly how many bailout packages Greece is going to need. For anybody who has ever had an unemployed alcoholic or drug addict in the family or as a close friend, the whole situation will seem uncomfortably familiar. Greece is in a mess, it is showing no signs of getting out of said mess, and no amount of money seems to help. If anything, it seems to exacerbate the mess. “Duuuuuuuuude,” says Greece. “Can you float me 120 billion euros? You know I'm good for it. C'mon, dude. I've got a job interview next week and I've got a really good feeling about it.” As far as the potential lenders go, they are unsurprisingly unenthusiastic about the idea of lending more money but are feeling kind of cornered. Nobody wants to see a market meltdown, but they also don't want to keep throwing good money after bad. German lenders are demanding incentives in the form of state guarantees. But, to return to the analogy, what good is a guarantee from a person (or, in this case, a country) so desperate and down on its luck. The second bailout package that Euro zone governments are discussing would run from this year to 2014 and amount to approximately $172 billion. It's difficult to foresee where this will end. A happy ending seems a long way away. But whatever the global economic equivalent of rehab is, Greece needs to be sent there.