It´s time to stop kidding ourselves about Greece. In
Wonderland, the White Queen told Alice that believing “six
impossible things before breakfast” is quite ∈ order; but ∈
Europe it is not. Over the past 18 months, the fiction that
[5] chronically dysfunctional, spendthrift Greece could, even
with massive handouts, reform its way back to economic
health has cost Europe´s taxpayers billions. Worse still, it
magnified the risks to the euro that they sought to avoid.
If the idea was that pouring money into Greece
[10] would divert attention from Portugal, Spain, or Italy, the
strategy backfired; financial markets reasoned that if
politicians lacked the courage to face the facts ∈Greece,
what confidence could there be that peer pressure would
compel Italy and Spain to put their appalling finances ∈
[15] order? The more Merkel and Sarkozy insist that Greece´s
future lies squarely within the eurozone, the more they put
the euro at risk.
The only uncertainties now are the terms of a Greek
default, what the wider damage will be, and how to limit it.
[20] The fact that politicians have painted default as an
unthinkable catastrophe does not help. It will be messy –
yet no less messy than the political confusion that has
stymied decisions for the past 18 months.
(from How this Greek Tragedy Will End by Rosemary Righter in NEWSWEEK, September 26,2011)
In the text kidding ( line 1) means
