Just logged on to Wikipedia today to look at the news because they always cover the biggest news stories on the top of the page and found to my delight that Greece will get a second bailout. This could have been a wonderful thing for Europe and the United States, and will be different from the first, because several variables have changed.
1 History facts
First, the first bailout was in April 2010, during that time Papandreou was Prime Minister, which except for 5 years his party PASOK had been in power since 1993. He was a highly corrupt Prime Minister and ineffective at leading his country, leading them to financial ruin and taking in almost no money. If you want a balanced accurate look at the history of this mess I highly recommend NPR's Planet Money's 340th episode from January 24th 2012 which explained the issue perfectly. The biggest issue is people didn't pay their taxes, the same reason America has a large deficit with such low spending (relative to the countries of Canada and all nations of Northern Europe) That is pretty much all you need to know about the issue.
2 Current situation.
Papademos is the new Prime Minister of Greece. He has been the Governor of the Bank of Greece from 1994 to 2002, and Vice President of the European Central Bank from 2002 to 2010. This guy is an experienced economist. This is his first political office that has not had economics as his prime function. He is also has been a Columbia University faculty member, John F. Kennedy School of Government faculty member, and National and Kapodistrian University of Athens faculty member. This guy has experience with the subject! He is 64 years old and a member of the Trilateral Commission and Academy of Athens. His school of economic thought is pro-Europe (which is good). Unfortunately he is a supply-side economist, also known as trickle down, the policy of America's most failed President in the realm of economics, Herbert Hoover. Nothing else matters. (source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15643454)
Europe is now officially screwed. America should not bail them out, Papademos as a supply-side economist will abuse it, and Greece needs to kick him out as fast as they possibly can and replace him with a Stockholm school economist. According to history, this will happen. Papademos will not save Europe.
Europe needs to kick Greece out of the eurozone now. They need to figure out how to fix their own problems, because they will not learn if they are part of the Europe. There needs to be a new resolution so that a country can leave the Eurozone while staying in the Schengen Area (the only shred of hope for the Greek economy I can see now.) because they will not solve the problems. Supply-side economics is extremely traditional, and has never solved any economic downturn. With this fool in charge of Greece and the opposition of Merkel and Sarkozy to having countries leave the Euro I fear for the world.
Greece must stay in the schengen zone though, because if New Dawn came to power Greeks need to keep contact with the rest of Europe. If Greece left the free travel zone war becomes a possibility.
I wrote this in February 2012.
I hope I am wrong.
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