Why do I care about Greece?

I see on the news this morning that in Greece there is (another) general strike protesting the cuts the government is making. The cuts are being made based on demands that the Greek government reduce spending in return for bailout money from other EU countries to try to prop up their banking system.

That's all sort of fancy talk, what has really happened? Greece joined the EU a while ago and started using the euro for it's currency (2002). Meanwhile the Greek government was running up huge deficits for salaries and pensions for civil servants, meaning government workers and everyone else under the sun. Being a Euro based economy meant that getting loans was easy. Now it's time to pay off the debt, and there isn't any money to do that. The EU has promised to pay off and delay some of the debt payments if Greece gets it's budget more in balance. These cuts are effecting Greeks who have become entitled to the money that's been coming in, so they are going on strike.

On the one hand, the ordinary Greek citizen that has been receiving government money feels put upon when it gets reduced. On the other hand the Greek government has been giving out money like crazy to get reelected and keep the citizens contented. The first round of cuts was May 2010 and now we're right back in the same place.

So who's to blame? The government that gave out the money or the citizens that demanded it? It's bread and circuses all over again. As the ancient Roman emperors had to support huge bakeries to supply the bread and put on the spectacular shows to entertain the masses, the modern politicians are also giving out the money and the citizens are demanding it in return for political support.

It doesn't look to me like this is a supportable system. Unfortunately for the Greek workers, the bankers keep good books. If the money was lent out, then they want it back. The bankers of the bankers will keep demanding the money back even if there is none. At this point the bankers need to be convinced that they can't get their money back without destroying the system. They will have to take a loss and it will have to be painful if the ordinary Greeks are willing to put up with their own pain.