Posted on 07/23/2011 9:04:24 AM PDT by jfd1776
Nervously – he was always nervous, these days – Greco approached the doorman at mob headquarters in Brussels. He hoped the old man wouldn’t recognize him.
A year earlier, when Greco asked for his first loan from the biggest sharks in Europe (Madame Angela and Slick Nicky), the doorman at mob headquarters had tried his best to advise Greco against it. “There’s a secret backer in their big deals, these days,” the doorman had warned him. “You really don’t want to do this, young man.”
But Greco went and did it anyway. He went into mob headquarters, played the part of a destitute supplicant, got his money, and went back home to spend it.
Now, against all good sense, he had come back for more.
The old doorman recognized him immediately. Eyes like a hawk, despite his age. “Hello, Greco! Good to see you. How’s life in the Mediterranean?”
Greco sheepishly acknowledged the greeting. “Not so hot, sir. That is, it’s hot – downright tropical, in fact – but not going well.”
The doorman shrugged. “Well, nothing’s ever gonna be perfect, son. This world is a far cry from heaven. But I’ve been to your country; if you’re gonna suffer, may as well suffer there. Beautiful scenery, majestic history, wonderful restaurants…”
“Hard to enjoy all those things nowadays,” muttered Greco, glumly. “They’re all mortgaged to the hilt. The scenery, the ruins, the food… everything from the Acropolis to the corner gyros stand owes its soul to your bosses here in Brussels.”
The old man stepped back a bit. “But… surely it can’t be that bad, if you’ve come back, right? I mean, you’re here to make a payment, aren’t you? After people take out a loan as big as yours was, they come back to make their payments, or they get their faces changed and hide out in some island someplace (if they can get there with broken kneecaps, anyway)… When I saw you coming down the road, I just naturally figured you must be bringing a partial payment, or maybe the final payoff. I was happy for ya; don’t bring me down, son!”
The old man paused and looked deep in Greco’s eyes. The young man’s sheepish countenance gave himself away. “You’re not here to ask for an extension, are ya? These are bad times to look for extensions. Loan sharks all over Europe have been sending to Kentucky for baseball bats, to keep up their high collection rates.”
“No, not an extension,” answered Greco, looking even more embarrassed. “Kind of a renegotiation.” He looked up, expectantly, to find a look of horror on the old doorman’s face.
“You out of your mind, son? They’ll never give you a renegotiation. You’re talking billions here, tens of billions.”
“Um, over a hundred billion, actually… Looking at about 109 billion euros, when the dust settles. 'Euros for Gyros," you might say..." Greco looked up, hoping for a chuckle, but the old man still looked grim.
"No more than last time, just changing the terms… extending them a bit… just ‘til we get our feet on the ground, you know? You think that’s gonna be a problem? My collateral hasn’t changed – still the most beautiful beaches on earth, the best lamb, fish, and seafood. Amateur historians will always want to visit my amphitheaters and temples. It’s a great place for, um, an investor. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that?”
The doorman looked around. Nobody close… just some tourists seated at a bistro table in front of the café next door, then an old man enjoying a coffee and pastry alone… and… uh oh, three foreign correspondents one more table down. To Greco, he warned “Turn away from them; you don’t want them to see you’re doing this.”
“Why not?” asked Greco. “They know already.” He sighed. “Everybody seems to know already. If I issued a press release, they’d say it was old news.”
It was true, of course. When Greco got his first loan, pledging austerity measures that everyone in Brussels swore would solve his problems, many observers had warned that it wouldn’t work. People as far away as Chicago were warning that his situation was sure to just get worse. But the Brussels Mob was happy to loan it, and Greco was happy to take it, so he disregarded the naysayers and plunged right in.
Now he told the doorman of his troubles. How his staff had balked when he had to cut their pay… how the pensioners screamed and fought when he reduced their stipends… how everybody seemed to conspire against him. Instead of cooperating to try to get through it together, they were storming his streets and picketing his casino. Honestly, he thought, it was like his people were the Wisconsin teachers’ union and his office was a state capitol.
“Everybody told me austerity would be enough, but it wasn’t. We cut our spending, just like we were told to, but the deficits continued. I hoped that businesses would move in and hire people, bringing money into the local economy, perking up the restaurants, hiring the boats, filling up the hotels… but maybe the demonstrations just scared people off… maybe I should raise taxes higher… Some people said that - we’re just still too expensive a place to do business – I’ve never worked in business, so I don’t know anything about it, but how can that be? I mean, if a place is great, why would a little thing like taxes keep you out of it?”
Greco reached into his pocket for his flask of ouzo (everybody has to have some way of getting through the day, especially when you’re in hock up to your eyeballs to the Mob), and took a swig before continuing.
“On the plane, I recognized a couple of American investors who had visited Athens, thinking about building a factory there. They told me they had decided to build their factory in India instead. I reminded them of our great scenery, our great beaches, our great food and wine and nightlife. You know what they said? They told me our taxes are still too high, and our people don’t work hard enough. That they demand too much vacation and sick days. Well, hey, if you lived in Greece, wouldn’t you want a lot of vacation days to enjoy it? …And then one of them said that they were still on the fence, still thinking about it, until they saw one of the anti-austerity demonstrations. They got on the plane to India and sealed that deal as soon as they arrived.”
“Honestly,” continued Greco, “can you imagine being so greedy? It’s like, it’s all about money to them. They don’t appreciate our history, our culture. We’re the best place in the world! How could they pick India over us?”
The doorman stood a long while, not saying a word, then he said, “Sounds like you’ve still got some learning to do, young man. Before you dig yourself a deeper hole, haven’t you asked anybody else for a bridge loan? Not a shark, but maybe some friends, some relatives, anybody else? Just so you wouldn’t have to come back here to Brussels again!”
Greco shook his head. “Everybody I know is in the same boat I am, or worse.” Then he brightened a bit. “in fact, I’m counting on that working in my favor, if I play my cards right.”
The doorman looked at him like he was nuts. “Being surrounded by foreclosed properties makes it harder to get a mortgage, son, not easier. Didn’t you ever take a class in economics?”
Greco smiled. “Sure I did! I studied Keynes, Krugman, Samuelson, Eisner. All the greats. I’ve always tried to live by their examples.”
Again, the doorman looked annoyed, but this time he didn’t comment.
Greco went on. “See, here’s the thing. I know that Madame Angela and Slick Nicky aren’t really all that worried about me; they’re worried about their closer relatives. You know Big Roma? He’s in trouble too, I hear. And the Iberian Gang? Their operation is on the verge of disaster too. With them in trouble, the Mob just can’t afford to waste time on me. So I figure they’ll have to stabilize my setup, out of fear my operation will spill over to my more important neighbors. Cool, huh? Their troubles could turn out to be a huge boon to me!”
The doorman shook his head. It sounded to him like some alternate reality version of schadenfreude: “It’s not enough that I succeed; my friends must fail.” In this odd new Old World, it seemed to him to be “It’s not enough that I fail, my neighbor has to fail twice as badly!” Out loud, the doorman just said, “Maybe I just don’t understand high finance.”
“Nobody does anymore, old man, nobody does.” Greco took a booklet out of his pocket. “Personally, I blame all those travel guides thirty and forty years ago. Fodors, Europe on Five Dollars a Day, and all the other pocketbooks like that. Once people got the idea they could go travel for free, they did so. My country was built on tourism; how could we be expected to make a buck once travelers started counting pennies?”
The old man said “A wise man once told me, ‘Cater to the Rolls Royce crowd, and you’ll go home in the subway. Cater to the subway crowd, and you’ll go home in a Rolls Royce.’” He looked expectantly at Greco, hoping for a flash of understanding, but saw none.
Greco shook his head. “If I don’t go in and get this loan refinance, I won’t be able to go home at all. I guess I’d better get moving.”
So the doorman did his job. He opened the door, and showed Greco in. The building was imposing, the furniture opulent. The apparatchiks were well-dressed, the coffee strong and rich. What a nice place to do business. If only the business were nice.
Greco took off his fisherman’s cap; he had a feeling that for this kind of a visit, he should enter the room, hat in hand, as they say.
Madame Angela and Slick Nicky were there, ready and waiting for him, as he bent down to kiss their rings. “Good morning, Godmother. Good morning, Godfather. Can we talk?”
Copyright 2011 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicago-based Customs broker and trade compliance lecturer. Never having visited Troy, Sparta, Athens, or Mycenae, he makes no claim to be an expert on Greece; he just hopes that being on the verge of foreclosure doesn’t cause the utter destruction of this once-golden birthplace of the civilized world.
Permission is hereby granted to forward freely, provided it is uncut and the byline and IR URL are included. Follow me on LinkedIn or Facebook!
(this is a sequel to last year's column, "Greco Meets a Loan Shark," at http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2010/05/greco-meets-a-loan-shark.html)
The heat here in the East must be getting to me.
When I saw “Greco,” I was thinking, “Joey Greco from ‘Cheaters.’”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.