Saturday, October 29, 2011

Contract ends a little early - back in Wells

No issues - as I've worked before with the client I was able to get the job done faster than they had budgeted. So the deliverable has been handed over after eight days rather than fifteen and I vacated the Reading flat yesterday.

In the evenings, after work, Alex and I could be found lounging in recliners under the glow of his John Lewis uplighters, discussing the affairs of the world. We mused on the condition of Greece: heavily indebted, ridiculously low productivity and falling farther behind Germany every day, the prisoner of powerful vested interests and corruption with no significant social forces to drive change.

What happens when the Germans eventually stop paying?

You could imagine that all sectors of Greek society decide to equitably take their pay cuts, pay their taxes, work longer hours (or show up) and retire much later ... or you could imagine that they will fight like dogs in a box to make sure that they get a disproportionate share from the now-merely-dripping tap. And when that happens we call it a breakdown of society. And the Greek Colonels will be back.

I wonder what the EU will do with a military dictatorship installed in one of its member countries? Send in the Bundeswehr?

Alex thought this eventuality had been under-explored in the media and urged me to write about it here: consider it done.