Theodore Dalrymple writing succinctly in City Journal warns that the problems in Greece are soon to be manifest in much of the Western world.
The Greek demonstrators did not understand, or did not want to understand, that if there were justice in the world, many people, including themselves, would be worse rather than better off, and that a reduction in their salaries and perquisites was not only economically necessary but just. They had never really earned their wages in the first place; politicians borrowed the money and then dispensed largesse, like monarchs throwing coins to the multitudes.
It is an obvious but often forgotten lesson of economics: what cannot continue will not continue.
Here's the whole piece:
Know Thyself by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal 7 May 2010
