Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts... or Taking Them?

President of the Euro Group, Jean-Claude Juncker (That bureaucratic bloke from Luxembourg who is very important, but no one heard of him.), has announced today the amount that will be spent on the gigantic bail-out of Greece. 110 Billion Euro. ONE HUNDRED AND TEN BILLION. Where have they suddenly found this kind of money? A nation-sized welfare package out of thin air - in effect this is fiat money at its "finest" disguised as a part-loan, part-gift. I was really praying (rather hopelessly) that someone might veto this thing before it happens. This "aid" has a huge economic importance, but also huge symbolic implications. We can now see that the countries which make up the EU are no longer sovereign; they are simple American-style States. This has been true since the Lisbon Treaty was signed as many people have warned (Nigel Farage, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, Daniel Hannan...), but now we have concrete proof that nobody can deny. This money has strings attached, as "free" hand-outs always do. Greece has to, for instance, cut government spending and lower its deficit. These are not bad things, but they are being thrust upon the Greeks by a higher order bureaucratic entity. This now directly states that the EU (or Euro Group to which everyone seems to want to belong) has the right to meddle in the affairs of countries I care about, such as Poland or the United Kingdom.

It seems the Europeans have sent Greece a horse, and they're gladly pulling it in...