Greece’s long vacation from reality is very nearly over. Not that you’d believe it from listening to the country’s politicians. In the aftermath of Greece’s last elections, voters rejected further austerity, and instead sought refuge in fantasy. That fantasy is perhaps best exemplified by Alexis Tsipras, who emerged from the election with the power to block approval of any further austerity by blocking the formation of a government.

Indeed, I now have some doubt as to whether Mr. Tsipras is actually sane:

Leftist Alexis Tsipras, 37, emerged with the power to block them. Greece, he said, could ditch its spending cuts and renounce its debts to EU partners, yet enlist their help in keeping the euro currency some 80 percent of Greeks cherish.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

And everybody with a lick of sense knows it’s not gonna happen. Not in Greece. Nor, apparently, anywhere else on the Euro Zone’s periphery, as money is fleeing it with alacrity.

Foreign bank deposits have fallen 64% in Greece, 55% in Ireland and 37% in Portugal; in Italy, the fall is 34% and Spain 13%. Foreign government bond holdings have dropped 56% in Greece, 18% in Ireland and 25% in Portugal; in Italy the fall is 12% and Spain 18%. So if Italy and Spain were to move to the average for the other three, a further 200 billion euros would flow out.

The Greeks are not being punished by rich Germans. They aren’t the victims of speculators or criminals. They are merely being forced to pay the price that reality is about to impose for decades of enthusiastic socialism, and the attendant corruption, debt, and malfeasance it has encouraged. Their problem isn’t "austerity"; it’s the unsustainable political and economic fantasies that have sustained the county’s political culture.

Greece is a failed state.  Spain is about to become a failed state. No doubt a list of "enemies" will be promulgated to try and paper over whose fault all this actually is. The sacrifice of scapegoats in times of crisis is, after all, a venerated European tradition.

But, that won’t help, or stop what is coming. Reality is relentless. And the really scary thing about that is that there are lessons in all this for us, which I am not entirely sure our own political class will heed—or is even capable of recognizing.

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Dale Franks
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