The current negotiations on the European aid in return for the reduction of Greek debt illustrates the value of Greek mythology in understanding current events. There are few characters in the pantheon of that mythology who demonstrate the wasting of time, frustration and useless effort of relentlessly pursuing a fruitless task than the figure of Ocnus (Ὄκνος).

Ocnus was an industrious man with an extravagant wife who spent everything he earned. In punishment for not controlling her excesses he was sent to the Underworld where he endlessly plaits a rope which a she-ass standing behind him continually eats. Ocnus personifies hesitation, frustration, delay and the wasting of time and effort. There has probably been no more Ocnosian a figure in European history than Lucas Papademos engaged in his fruitless negotiations with the Germans and their henchmen. No matter how fast he weaves his rope of straw it will never suffice as instead of one she-ass behind him he has one German she-ass, a French donkey and clown from the Bretton Woods coalition.

There is no solution in this process. Giving Ocnus more straw will not produce a better or longer rope. It will only serve to nourish the gang behind him. The poor Greeks who are struggling to produce more straw are running out of the ability to get yields from a barren and overworked field. There is no more productivity to be had; no more sacrifices which are not self-defeating; no future to which any Greek can count on achieving.

There is a limit to how much they can ask of the Greek people. They have sacrificed in recession for five years. Unemployment is over 19%.  Wages have fallen, prices have risen and savings have been wiped out. Now the Europeans want even more.

What is even more distressing is that this whole process is a study in controlled fiction. There is the presumption, often stated with ill-mannered arrogance, that the Germans had no role in Greek prolifigacy. The Germans need the single market. Over 40% of the German GDP comes from exports; mainly to the European Union. The German economy would (will) fall into deep depression with the collapse of the single market which will follow the collapse of the Euro. The Germans used the European Union to promote its exports. A key policy was to push for the Euro currency zone which would allow other European countries access to credit at a rate far above that which it could achieve absent the Euro and to use that credit to buy German goods. The Germans actively encouraged imprudent debt as it served their ends. They now seek austerity but not really an austerity which will diminish the demand for German exports. It was the German failure (and that of France) to obey the Maastricht budgetary limits, without punishment, which opened the barn doors for Southern Europeans to follow their example.

There is also the fiction that Germany has a strong economy which can withstand the buffets of an unstructured collapse of the Euro. This is not true. The Bundesbank has used up its entire private assets and has expended over 250 billion Euros in the credits for the EMU support system. All in, the Bundesbank has used 496 billion Euros of ‘Target 2’ automatic payments to other central banks. "This is reaching the danger point. It is already one and a half times the total budget of the German government," said Professor Frank Westermann of Osnabrück University. "If any of the crisis countries exits the euro or if there is an EMU break-up, the Bundesbank bears extreme risks." The Bundesbank now owes 228 billion Euros to German banks. The Bundesbank already holds 12 billion Euros of Greek debt. Unlike others, the Bundesbank does not have legal immunity for its losses. The question, then, is why are the Germans so adamant about getting Greek guarantees of lower wages, commitments to further austerity and subservience to some German economic gauleiter who will run the Greek economy? When it all collapses it is the German taxpayer who will end up footing the bill anyway.

So perhaps this is a good time to show mercy to poor Ocnus and let him get on with his fruitless task without additional pressure. Germany, and to a lesser degree France, has everything to gain by pursuing Greek economic recovery and the most to lose by its failure. This is a mystery which no one seems to have solved.