Forget Achilles heels, euro zone's weakness is unleavened

Hong Kong's stock market yesterday suffered its biggest loss this year, with more than HK$500 billion wiped off the value of shares, as institutional investors offloaded stock on fears Greece may have to give up the euro.

SCMP, May 17

My colleague Harry Harrison, our cartoonist, was up to his usual biting standard the other day with a cartoon of an ancient Greek warrior slashing the Achilles heel of a yelping European fat cat.

It fits the circumstances entirely, provided we make that fat cat the European Central Bank (there are few other cats that fat in Europe these days) and provided we note that Harry's Greek warrior was also on the chubby side and could do with some fat trimming himself.

Greece has itself to thank for its troubles. It has for too long paid its numerous civil servants too much for tasks of too little use to the citizenry, and one reason this misuse of resources continued as long as it did is that the Greek citizenry did not pay for it.

The corporations and citizens of other European countries picked up the bill through their deposits in banks that then advanced the money to the Greek government. Greece relied on foreigners to run a fiscal deficit on its operating budget, leave alone anything on the capital side, and that sort of fiscal irresponsibility is just not sustainable.