Spoilt Greek children out to play again

It's The Guardian of course which gives space to the undergraduate antics of some provincial Greeks, referenced by Richard North.

The paper calls its piece "a beginner's guide to the crisis". Staff laid off by a closed restaurant squat there and keep it open. Taxi drivers have been protesting at government plans to open up the industry. (Competition would obviously be the work of the devil.) Demonstrators push aside road toll barriers and wave motorists through. Banners read: "We won't pay", and "We won't give money to foreign bankers".

This undergraduate action continues in supermarkets.

He also stages supermarket ambushes, handing shoppers big protest stickers to place on any goods they consider ludicrously expensive. Milk is a favourite. Noulas and his group fill trolleys with goods and ask the manager for a 30% discount. When refused, they abandon the full trolleys at the till.

Tee hee. That is so brave, so clever, so unselfish.

People refuse to pay for their Athens metro tickets, "with protesters covering ticket machines with plastic bags". Other demonstrators close the cashiers' rooms in hospitals. In Thessaloniki

The latest target was the German consulate, where dozens of demonstrators chanted and spray-painted the pavement, demanding the European Union did more for Greece.

Run that past me again? The children want to be lent more? Any mention of how these additional loans they're demanding would be paid back, along with all the rest? Thought not.

This is not a serious political movement, and The Guardian's piece is not "a beginner's guide to the crisis" - unless the paper means it is a guide to the crisis written by a beginner. No mention of the early retirement age. No mention that paying tax in Greece is optional. One of John Redwood's constituents was just back from Greece.

I asked my source what it had been like. He said it was like going to a party. The restaurants were full where he visited. He saw plenty of economic activity. Everywhere he went he was told they liked tourists who pay with cash, not credit cards. The view seemed to be that they did not trust their government to spend their money wisely, so why go out of their way to put the income through the books or pay the taxes? If you could add the unofficial economy into the figures it might not look so bad.

The spoiled children stamp their feet and demand more. It's jolly well not fair, they whinge.

Meanwhile our EU and IMF masters keep throwing our money at the spoilt children. And some commentators actually seem to take the children seriously.

Keep stamping your feet all you like. Just don't expect more of my money. You've had too much of it already.