Barrel Strength

Lost in the public pension and government debt debacle are the seeds of intergenerational warfare.  Those under 40 are slowly starting to realize that they are being saddled with debt that they will have difficulty paying off.

Some young Greeks prefer to blame their elders for the mountain of debt that has resulted in Greece, like a wayward child, being placed under the tutelage of the men from the IMF.

“I cannot help but blame my parents a little for what’s happened,” said Achilles Zacharoulis, a 36-year-old cardiologist. “They were here all that time,” he added, referring to the past three decades of mismanagement and fiscal insanity. “But what did they do to stop it?”

Vaggelis Gettos, 24, is just as alarmed at the burden being heaped on the young by austerity measures expected to be announced today, and has pledged to resist them in more protests this week against what he sees as a plot to impoverish Greece.

“We will live much worse than our parents,” he said. “Why should we be made to pay for their mistakes?”

Those who think that they can contently collect gold-plated pension for the foreseeable future might want to consider this development.

In the first ruling of its kind, a bankruptcy judge held that the city of Vallejo, Calif., has the authority to void its existing union contracts in its effort to reorganize, holding that public workers do not enjoy the same protections Congress gave union workers at private companies.

With PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) on the ropes and UK being warned by IMF of similar consequences, it should be interesting.

There were fears that Britain could follow Greece into a financial crisis after a global finance chief warned of economic “contagion” spreading across Europe.

The head of the International Monetary Fund urged politicians to finalise a bail-out for the debt-laden Mediterranean country, saying that every day lost in resolving the problems risked spreading the impact “far away”.

Of course, this is not the first time that Britain will go cap in hand to IMF.  It did exactly that in 1976 and with the perennial shark (aka George Soros) already circling the country it might be only a matter of time.  The next question is, who will help the IMF?

Obama, you are our only hope.