The current problem facing Greece and the Eurozone has been dominating the news lately. The reports people sees in newspaper and broadcasts make the problem overly complex, difficult to understand and resolve. As a citizen of the US, this is my own simplified view:
1.In the 50 United States of America, we have rich states, such as California, New York, and Massachusetts and poor states such as Kentucky and North Dakota. The rich states pay far more in federal taxes to the federal government than the poor states. The government takes the tax money and redistributes it for the good of the whole country. The poor states receive much more of this revenue back than they contribute. Most people are not even aware of such re-distribution and certainly would agree that this all for the greater good even if brought to their attention since we are all part of one country operating under a central government.
2.The Eurozone can be viewed as an incomplete step toward a “United States of Europe”. The rich state is Germany and the poor state is Greece. But because of language, history, and customs, redistribution of benefits are far from automatic. Yes, Greece as part of the Eurozone,certainly deserves of economic help (disguised as loans rather than direct redistribution). At the same time, as part of a union Greece must obey/conformto certain common rules of economic behavior imposed on every member states.Greece cannot irresponsibly spend Euros and expect other member nation to subsidize her endlessly and behave as a totally sovereign country. There in lies the problem. If there were a true United States of Europe and a strong central European government (as in the case of USA), there won’t be a crisis.
3.As the world globalizes, unification is an irresistible trend. United Nations is an organizational attempt after WWII. However, it is often accused to be a weak organization that can do little to resolve conflicts and wars. However, to some extent we have learned from the failed attempt of the League of Nations after WWI. You can say that the United Nation was deliberately designed to be weak because we realized that we are not ready for world unification. On the other hand, we can also say that the economic unification of the Eurozone was an ill-fated attempt without thinking through all the ramifications of rich-poor countries united under one EURO.
4.Someday, our world will come under one government and one language. But I certainly will not live to see it.
#4 is impossible as documented in Bible due to human sinful nature. "#4 - Someday, our world will come under one government and one language. But I certainly will not live to see it. "
The idea of an united global nation is so remote that it resembles the prediction of the death of the universe due to homogenization of everything in the universe. We are not going to see it in our life time, for sure.
In a democracy, people vote for their own interest: high pensions, big defense spending, all kinds of welfare. Nobody cares about who pays for these as long as that group of voters get what they want. In the end, even rich states become poor, like the state of Illinois. where the strange industry of making petro out of corn failed to keep the state afloat.
Nobody can resist using someone else's money legally, for free, never think of paying back. But pay back they must, ulnless you got a navy like that of Uncle Sam.
Your comparison between the 50 states of the US and the Euro Union members is really interesting. The complete unification of the Erope needs time in considerration of their diversiies in tradition, language, historical disputes etc. I have drawn a world without gavernments and nations, and people can travel around the world without any restrictions.
Across the United States are immigrants. But across Europe have their own diverse nations and history, there are a lot of historical resentment among the European countries is more difficult to reconcile. Relatively speaking, the euro zone may also need to learn from the past experiences of China, good and bad. Anyway, god bless the EURO.
I am not quite sure if our friends in China an fully understand the crisis. One thing i noticed is the Chinese media is not following on this issue that much as the western media is so closely. I agree, the difficulties Eurozone is facing is really complex due to the loose organization. On the other hand, people are really confused by what the Greek government is thinking about.
博主回复(2015-7-9 06:45):This article is my attempt to make clear and simple the basic issue involved from my perspective.