Another day, another debt

Hurrah! The world, or at least the eurozone, is saved! For a whole two weeks at least!

It turns out that the solution to its chronic debt problem is stunningly simple—more debt!

The piteously old-fashioned and curmudgeonly Germans have decided that they don't want to break their own constitution (and that of the EU) by shovelling any more of their hard-earned in the direction of the Mediterranean. I guess they previously figured that €440 billion was too trifling for small-minded people to raise legal quibbles. It's only two months' German production after all. One would surely hope the man in the Strasse would be only too happy to donate two months' wages to keep a 50-year-old retired Greek civil servant in the manner to which he's become accustomed.

Anyway, they've rediscovered quaint concepts such as the law, and democracy, so they're not contributing a pfennig more—or so they're led to believe. A cool trillion is reckoned to solve all problems, including those of bankers who backed the wrong horses. (There's no point studying the form book when your friends beg, borrow and steal money to replenish your coffers.) So who's going to stump up the extra €560 billion, if not the German taxpayer? It turns out no-one knows. Find a bigger fool, quick!

Of course, there's only one entity on the planet for which €560 billion is loose change, and which doesn't haven't to go through the tiresome business of asking anyone's permission to spend it. I wonder what concessions the Chinese government will require before handing it over. Expect criticism of human rights abuses emanating from European chancelleries to become somewhat, shall we say, muted.

I can't have been paying proper attention to these developments. Amidst the usual cacophony of self-congratulation, I haven't heard any word of who is going to pay back this €560 billion, if it's ever raised, and when. But somehow, I think the diligent German worker has won only a temporary reprieve.

Of course, the British and American public will soon enough face their own variations on a common theme. Schadenfreude isn't what it used to be.