To the OP's question, as far as the mustachian philosophy, it doesn't matter if your local economy melts down, you're better off living this lifestyle.
So your investments disappear and your balance sheet becomes worthless?
You are still in better shape then people who grind away their life in a cubicle until age 67.
You are still in better shape then people who don't know how to live off 15, 20, or 25k per year.
You are still in better shape then people who were already in massive debt when the bottom fell out.
And as an interesting and natively optimistic person, fresh off of years or decades of retirement, you'll make a great employee, particularly once so many others seeking work have their kneecaps bashed in by german bankers. That's what we're talking about right?
If I lived in Greece right now I'd stay invested in Greece, because home team.
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The holders of that Greek debt are well within their rights to enforce the contracts. But it is not always true that just because you are allowed to do a thing, it is right to do the thing.
Should Greece have borrowed all that money. Naw. Particularly not to spend the way they did. Should they have joined the EU? Naw. Should the EU have let them in? Naw.
The situation is too complicated for right and wrong. Everyone had a hand in this stew.
The idea of multiple, independent, powerful countries deciding to share a currency, but not merging in any other real way, was fucking nuts.
This is an articles of confederation thing. Without an obligation that others come to your aid, they're going to say piss off at some point.
Was Greece headed for a ten year depression if they hadn't joined the EU? I seem to recall that they sort of were. I don't remember the Greek economy ever being held up as a great way to do things.
But I think being on the euro has made their situation worse. That's because nobody is blameless in a situation like this. The responsible older brother who strings his sibling along until finally cutting them off isn't even close to being responsible for the other's situation, but he isn't not responsible either.
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So what if, instead of the USA were Greece, what if, say, North Carolina, or Ohio, was Greece. And Texas and Colorado said, no, we won't help you refinance that debt, you can just descend into oblivion. That wouldn't sound particularly neighborly.
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I get nervous whenever any foreign-debt-payment riddled European country elects far left wing well-spoken politicians who are openly contemptuous of the existing European order.
Just sayin'.
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The recent election makes it really really easy to say, well, that's what they want, just let them go into default. Then they'll learn their lesson.
Yes, I'm sure that once their financial, educational, and governmental institutions collapse, the generation of children that grow up in abject poverty will both understand why it happened and agree with us who is to blame.
I'm suspicious that it doesn't work like that. I don't believe that any politican, grecian or otherwise, now or in the future, will ever tell the truth to the people casting the votes, except by accident. So this isn't a teenager we found smoking the reefer in our own house, who will understand that because they let it interfere with their grades, is going to have to be punished.
This is the 80 year old man who just groped his nurse. You can stab him in the throat if you want, but it isn't something he truly deserves.
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During the US financial meltdown, I wanted some bankers hauled in front of the firing squad. I wanted the people responsible to die horrible deaths, and I wanted their children to know poverty for 9 generations. Suspend due process. We know who did this, lets fucking kill them. That'll teach others to not do this again. It's a good thing the people in charge weren't paying attention to what I wanted. It wouldn't have helped.
There is no, zero, upside, to a greek default. There just isn't. You can say that they'll learn their lesson, or that others would follow their example, but that is a longshot argument. Literally every single party will be worse off. That the leaders on their side are hell bent on going down that road doesn't mean you should let them. Financial collapse is always bad. Always. Any reform or social engineering re-education would be better performed against a backdrop of stable economic development.
You don't let your friend jump off the ledge. You just don't. It is always wrong. Independent of you having a totally legit reason to be somewhere else at the time. You made a commitment to that friend to be there. No matter how hard they kick and struggle, you just hold on until help arrives. You watch their kids until they get out of rehab. You keep your hands off their wife. Even if they touched yours.
Stubbornness in others is so frustrating exactly because it brings out our own stubbornness. That's why your kid not eating his vegetables makes you want to send them to bed without dinner. You won't eat this? FINE! You can't have ANYTHING! The outside observer shakes his head at the stubborn child and the stubborn parent. The parent is both aware of letting the child dictate their state, and frustrated that they can't come up with a different solution.
Negotiations seem to have broken down. And what that always means is that someone else is going to put a different idea forward. Hopefully it's "lets all eat chocolate" and not "lets blame and purge that class/race/profession."
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It's entirely possible that making every Greek sit down and read this blog (translated into pension access language?) would fix the whole thing.
