Why I Hope Greece Votes No

I'm not Greek. My family isn't Greek. Unless it's buried somewhere in the holdings of my 401K, I don't own any stock or bonds in Greece. All told, I have very little at stake in the Greek referendum vote today and even less say in how it should go - I don't live there. But I really do hope they vote no today and I hope it leads to their exit of the EuroZone.

Greece made spending mistakes in the boom times of the 90s and early 2000s. They over borrowed, over leveraged, and general just went on like the party was never going to end. Not all that different, really, from how a number of countries and individuals spent money. But even if you say that Greece was worse than everybody else, that the corruption ran deeper, that the spending was even more foolish, you can't blame them entirely. They had to get the money from somewhere and it wasn't just Greek banks lending it out.

Across the EuroZone, banks from foreign countries were happy to lend money into Greece. If they didn't look into the country and see that there was a problem it seems to me like they didn't really do their fiduciary duties. And they didn't do those duties. Banks in Germany and France were highly exposed to Greek debt when everything started coming apart. The Governments of those countries stepped in to bail them out. And then turned, full financial guns beared, and aimed right at Greece and the Greek people.

The austerity measures that were put in place were really rather astonishing. Governments were dismissed and the people were told "Unless you elect who we want and they do what we want you aren't getting any money. We will let your economy collapse". It was really rather gut-wrenching to watch. It should have come as no surprise, yet it seemed to shock the ruling classes in Germany and France, that the Greek people would throw off this government and elect one that would fight back.

For example, could you imagine the outrage if New Jersey, Illinois, Delaware, and Minnesota (average of $0.44 returned for every $1.00 sent to the fed) got to step in and dismiss the state governments of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, and New Mexico (average of $2.29 returned for every $1.00 sent to the fed)? It would huge. And it should be. When a group of Governments bands together the way the States did in 1787, and have agreed to do since as each new state was admitted, the rules change. They have to. European countries don't seem to have recognized that yet.

I remember thinking in the early 2000s, when the common currency was about to come in to the European market, that it seemed odd; it didn't make sense to me. The countries they were pulling together seemed too disparate to make it work. I didn't really think it would last. However, the boom times of the early 2000s let to go right along with out a problem and things seemed, on the outside, to be going ok.

The early ideas of the EuroZone, the single currency, the European Union as a whole, were to help unite the continent and prevent the wars that had ravaged it for centuries. Europe still may be able to get there, but I don't think they can do it under a system that looks a lot like the Articles of Confederation that the United States first tried. You can't have independent states tied that economically without a strong, central authority to help guide them through.

In the end, I hope Greece votes no. I hope it starts to lead to the break down of the European Union as we know it today so it can reform itself into something better. The fault lines that have caused so much bloodshed of the centuries are still there and preventing an all out shooting war should be a goal for everybody. But we also need to stop an all out finical war where two classes of countries exist. Europe is better than that. They just need to prove it.