The dealer's plan to rope us in

I've heard that drug dealers start with free samples, rope you in, and end up owning everything you have. Casino's don't take barter, but in an era of easy credit they can bankrupt you too.

Is the dealer's plan always to get you addicted so that he ends up with all your loot? It's probably always in the back of his mind.

Moving on from analogy to my real point, I wonder about the plan of the banks that loaned so much money to the Greek government, Greek banks, and Greek households. Did they think:

• Greece has good prospects long-term, and I've got loan quotas to meet.
• High payouts now, then fool someone else into buying the bad debt.
• Moderate payouts now, then the EU bails them out.
• Moderate payouts now, then foreclose and end up owning some picturesque property.

The last choice is how the drug dealer figures it, while the honest money left Greece earlier. So I wonder, was that the plan all along? This commenter thinks so:

"In a few years we'll be able to shoo the remaining stone age hunter gathers off some really valuable islands in the Aegean. I can see American, German, and Chinese developers competing to build condo complexes in the Dodecanese. Or maybe Crete will become the 51st US state after it becomes an American Protectorate in a couple of decades.

"A win-win proposition. Americans and Germans get new land to expand into, and the world learns the end result of socialism.  In very stark terms." -- Atlantic comment

And moving from Greece's situation to our own, what are the plans of the US creditors? I've heard the conspiracy theory that the Chinese, mining companies, and billionaires will be buying up the most beautiful parts of the country, the national parks. It seems far-fetched in this country, but not for Greece. Am I kidding myself?

Would Americans stand for selling off our public lands? Would Greeks? If you're the moneylender, or pusher, and your former debtors become your irate neighbors, maybe your strategy wasn't so good. But I don't think pushers think that far ahead, and it seems the banks didn't either.

So how do we stop the drug dealers, er, banks from getting us hooked, or do we have to hope they just won't try?

New owner for Mykonos?

Photo: agreekproperty.com