What Happens When Greek ‘Austerity’ Fails?

Eerie, isn’t it, watching the U.S. stock market dog-tail the headlines stirred up by Europe’s never-ending financial crisis. The mainstream media would have us believe that whatever U.S. stocks do on a given day can be attributed to the latest news concerning Greece. In fact, the world’s newsrooms are sinking deeper and deeper into hallucination, since nothing has occurred to alter Greece’s inevitable slide toward default. Halfway into yesterday’s NYSE session, the financial headlines at Google news were telling us that stocks had fallen because of supposed uncertainties over Greece. An hour later, when stocks rallied to end the day slightly higher, we learned that the “zigzagging” price action had been caused by a series of “conflicting headlines” concerning European debt. Merkel and Sarkozy were not to blame for this, either, since all they did was issue a joint statement that EU leaders would have a bailout plan for Greece in place by Wednesday.

We can hardly wait to see what they’ve come up with. But if it triggers more riots in Athens, how are investors supposed to react? A few months ago, rampaging torch mobs were seen as evidence that austerity measures imposed on Greece were sufficient to satisfy lenders. Now, however, lenders should fear that any futher tightening will send the country irretrievably into civil disorder and chaos. It would be naïve to think that such a spectacle would not have its effect on Occupy Wall Street. But riots? We’d bet against it, at least for the foreseeable future. The difference between Greece’s mobs and America’s emerging tent cities is that the latter are coming to austerity one small step at a time rather than having it shoved in their faces via government edict. But that is not to say that America’s descent has been imperceptibly gradual. That may have been true until a few years ago. But not now, especially with the recent revelation that household incomes fell 10%, the steepest decline since the 1930s Depression, after the recession supposedly ended in June 2009.

Can the spinmeisters can keep this game going indefinitely, as some seem to think? We’d bet against it. One of these days, we’re all going to wish we’d done more to prepare for what is coming.