As the Euro crisis deepens and the leaders of Italy and Greece resign, I figured it would be a good time to summarize what is going on. Luckily, I found this great SNL video that does so nicely (via Big Picture):
Aside from being funny, I think you would be hard pressed to find another three minute video that better captures what is going on overseas:
- It’s hard to convince the masses to cut government spending and lower their standard of living.
- Why were countries like Germany and France lending lots and lots of money to countries like Greece and Italy when the former should have known paying off all that debt would be difficult, if not impossible?
- As such, creditors need to work with debtors to figure out a solution. The burden isn’t only on the debtor.
- Leadership from France and Germany has been weak.
- Given the cultural, social, and language barriers, pulling the Eurozone together was an uphill battle from the start. In times of crisis this will probably prove to be more difficult. Plus they have been fighting each other since Europe was inhabited and were at it as recently as 60 or so years ago.
