George II, in one of those many moments when he veritably hooted and scratched and dragged his knuckles across the ground, memorably referred to the people of Greece as “the Grecians.”
In this, at least, he was a form of prescient.
For these days, everybody—at least out here in the West—is encouraged to look upon the Greek people as a sort of terminally de-evolved form of human, rapidly descending
onto animal, one that unaccountably runs wild, burning cars and throwing stones, because purportedly Saner People want them to Pay Their Debts, and then Go Back To Their Own Good Holes.
But “the Grecians,” they were busily founding Western Civilization, way back in about the 7th Century BCE. Back when everybody else in the West was about at, well, the level of George II. And it seems to me that, in these recent days, “the Grecians” have had just about a bellyful, of a bunch of jerky-cum-latelys, hectoring them about how they should behave, some 2700 years later.
You see, the Greeks were founding Western Civilization before even there was money . . . which was invented by the Lydians, round about the same time, 7th Century BCE. But over in some other country somewhere. Not some Grecian thing at all.
For the Greeks have never really been about money. They have always been more about history, science, philosophy, drama, oracles, fate, the Olympics, burning cars in the street rather than paying taxes, and pederasty.
But they’ve had a bad couple thousand years, the Greeks, and in and among those, those bad couple millennia, money got involved.
But now, it’s clear, they’ve had enough of it.
And so, last Monday, “the Grecians” went into their banks, and withdrew some $894 million euros.
Previously, between January 2010, and March 2012, the Grecians pulled out of the banks nearly one-third of all the money, that had previously resided there.
Some hair-on-fire wild man over in Wales has subsequently ululated that “[o]ver the last two years Greeks withdrew approximately 70 billion euros from their bank accounts, an amount equivalent to approximately 35 percent of Greek GDP.”
Taking into consideration the fact that the Grecians, like all Mediterranean peoples—Spanish, Portuguese, southern French, etc.—have for forever and a day given the stink-eye to banks, preferring to keep their money in the ground, and away from the tax-man, I am estimating that well over half the money in Greece is no longer in banks, but instead in mattresses, instead in the ground, instead in some other unknown place.
Good.
furthur=>
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