Entitlement, Teen-agers and Greece

Last week I watched a 30 minute news program and counted the number of times each person featured in a story was mentioned.  The four top names are in the poll on this blog.  I thought I would do a blog on each person, which means I should to a column on Casey Anthony, but I can’t do it.  The story is too grim and, frankly, this woman is too guilty.  We could save the state a great deal of money, and all of us a parade of horrible details by simply packing this despicable brat off to prison and have her clean the toilets there for the rest of her miserable life.  I will never understand animals like her.  Enough said.

What I really like to talk about are macro-problems.  These are problems that touch all of us—to the sixth generation.  I have a master’s degree in economic education and taught econ at the local community college at night to help put my girls through college.  The problem with economics is it just doesn’t tap dance.  There is nothing about our economic problems that fits into a CSI drama and certainly not a 30 minute sit com (that job belongs to some of our legislators).  But sometimes, the world gives us a graphic illustration of an otherwise chalkboard principle.

There is a cautionary tale coming our way from Greece.  Today in Athens, 25 thousand people surrounded the Parliament building to protest anti-austerity programs.  The mob degenerated into violence as mobs always do.  The bill which the mob was protesting must be passed to allow Greece access to its rescue funding.  Without the rescue funding Greece will defaulting on its debt.  Does all of this sound familiar?  Notice no one is talking about actually solving the problem, just delaying it.

By way of illustrating the problem in Greece’s austerity program they interviewed a woman who was a nurse, decrying the fact that under the austerity program her salary would drop from 1100 euro’s to 900.  She still gets her 4 weeks of mandated paid vacation a year—standard in Europe.  The point is—her salary comes from the government, not the hospital for whom she works.  The government is the national employer.  There is no competition, no free market, no negotiation there is only entitlement. 

The problem with entitlement is that there can be no affection or loyalty between the principles, there can only be suspicion, animosity and resentment.  Entitlement is a relationship doomed to failure.  Think about raising children.  When your children are little they are totally dependant upon you and a good parent assumes this responsibility with whole-hearted, loving commitment.  But part of that job is bringing those children to the point where they are independent agents.  Anyone who has a teen-ager (a creature that is all mouth and no brain) knows that the transition from dependency to independence is not an easy one.  But if the parent has done a good job of raising that child, teen-agers actually become truly wonderful and beautiful people.  Then they have children of their own and you get to watch them struggle as you did and you can smile if not laugh aloud.  [God pays slowly, but God pays in full.] 

If the dependant nature of a child continues past the age when they should be contributing to the world, there is continuous discord in the house.  The person doing all the giving gets sullen and resentful.  The person doing all the taking can only feel good about their parasitic status by denigrating the host.  The takers are also in constant fear of losing their favored status and counter by demanding more and more as proof that they will not be forgotten.  Like all good lessons of government, you need look no farther than the lessons of the family to understand them.  Show me a family where the 42 year old son is still living in the basement, marginally employed, smoking pot and not doing his own laundry and I will show you a dysfunctional government.  I’ll show you Greece.

But none of this tap dances.