Back in the late eighties, there used to be a joke, especially among radio and nightclub DJs.<\/p>\n
Q: If Tiffany and Debbie Gibson got into a knife fight, who’d win?<\/p>\n
A: The world<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Both Ms. Darwish<\/a> and Ms. Gibson<\/a> are alive, well, and unscathed enough.<\/p>\n
But the same joke could be applied to the Greek crisis – where two of the most noxious ideas of the past 100 years are duking it out.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, you have the Greek people, who yesterday resoundingly proclaimed “We can’t be broke! \u00a0We still have more checks!”. \u00a0They represent the impulse De Tocqueville warned of when he said (I’ll paraphrase) “a democracy can only survive until the majority discovers they can vote themselves goodies from the public treasury”. \u00a0 What do we call it? \u00a0Populism? \u00a0Mob Rule? \u00a0Let’s call it “Krugmanism”.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, we have the EU – a monolithic bureaucracy which is intending to overturn an elected (if deeply stupid) sovereign government. \u00a0Call it the bureaucratic nanny-state.<\/p>\n
If they kill each other off in Greece, the world will win. \u00a0But I’m not holding my breath.<\/p>\n