By the method of exhaustion

The great thing about the ?Eureka? plan for the Greek economy is that the name proves yet again that the Europeans cannot take a step without leaning on ancient Greece. As this is also the case with the Americans, who dust off their Thucydides every time they launch a liberation invasion, we can only conclude that it is a homage offered in perpetuity.

The bad thing about this latest plan, however, is, firstly, that it is designed to help the creditors rather than the bankrupt borrowers, and, secondly, that those who found their inspiration in Archimedes did not just stick to ?Eureka,? but were tempted to take the legacy of the Greek mathematician further.

Of all the great things that Archimedes left us, they opted to adopt his method of exhaustion, which the ancient sage perfected in order to determine the area of a given shape. It goes without saying that it was the name that inspired rather than the spirit. So they adapted the exhaustion method to their designs and, with the concurrence of those Greeks who continue to see them as miracle workers, got ready to use it to the ultimate degree.

The first area where the exhaustion method was applied was the payroll. Already, a succession of pay cuts, whether imposed by the troika or the local healers, have exhausted the economic stamina of all workers in the public and private sectors and, of course, their consumer and purchasing power as their savings have dwindled to almost nothing.

The next area targeted for application of the exhaustion method was taxation, where property owners and especially wage earners and pensioners cannot participate in the national sport of tax dodging even if they were so inclined: With the wile of Archimedes, the government and its international supervisors came up with all sorts of levies, taxes and ?social contributions,? giving them pretty-sounding names like ?solidarity tax? and so exhausting their own sense of humor and irony.

They have also exhausted the limits of the euphemism by dubbing as ?labor reserve status? the effective sacking of thousands of public sector employees in another display of irony rather than the belief that by changing the name of a thing it may just work.

The possibility that they may one day soon find themselves facing an enraged populace, which has seen its tolerance and patience exhausted, does not seem to occur to them. After all, whenever they?re faced with a large mass protest, they respond with Archimedes? final words: Do not disturb my circles.