Democracy should trump the market

Another great piece today in the Post by Harold Meyerson on how democracy should trump markets but hasn't in Greece - or in the U.S. for that matter.  Take the 2008 bank bailout.  If that had been truly little 'd' democratic - of course it was done by a big R Republican - Congress and the White House would have insisted that one condition for receiving massive amounts of taxpayer money was to write off 50 to 75 percent of the bad mortgages.  That way taxpayers would have tangibly benefited from helping the banks instead of simply being told these institutions were 'too big to fail.'

Robert Reich recently wrote a great column on democracy over capital, too.

In Greece, the issue is the actual euro and the euro zone.  Lost in the drama in Greece and the pending one in Italy (and Spain, and Portugal, and . . . ) is just how flawed the euro zone is, how badly that monetary 'union' has been put together.  Ironically, Greeks want to stay in the euro zone but also keep their economic sovereignty, which seem to be mutually exclusive.  

If the euro is to survive countries like Germany and Greece, France and Italy, need to integrate their economic and taxation policies - and in Greece's case, start collecting taxes - not just their currency.  

As Meyerson points out: "The euro created a house divided against itself. Monetarily, the continent was unified, but fiscally, politically, governmentally, economically and culturally, European nations remained separate and sovereign."  

I wonder if Greeks understand that in order to keep the euro they will have to give up their sovereignty.  Or maybe they do; Greeks have been so under served by their political class they may be willing to give Germany's or Brussels' bureaucrats a try.