{"id":1772,"date":"2015-09-29T07:30:58","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T14:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/?p=1772"},"modified":"2015-09-29T01:55:15","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T08:55:15","slug":"groundhog-day-in-greece-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/2015\/09\/29\/groundhog-day-in-greece-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Groundhog Day in Greece (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is follows up on Part One from last week<\/a>].<\/p>\n

Last week I brought up the question: why have the parties negotiating the future of Greece allowed a seemingly needless series of near catastrophes (followed by last-minute resolutions) to occur?\u00a0One answer might be the reason why you (probably) write your essays the night before they’re due. Collin’s great article from last year<\/a>\u00a0delves into an economics-flavored analysis of procrastination. If you don’t have time to give it a read–which you should definitely do–the gist is this: “…given the choice between having a good thing ($100) now or later, we tend to prefer having them now…\u00a0We as humans tend to have a\u00a0temporal preference\u00a0for present consumption, rather than future consumption.”<\/p>\n

Greece-related dealmaking requires onerous concessions from both sides. German taxpayers fund a significant portion<\/a> of Greek bailout deals and they seem to be increasingly skeptical<\/a> of shouldering this burden. As demonstrated a “resounding no”<\/a> vote in an officially-sanctioned referendum on the topic, the Greek\u00a0political grassroots\u00a0are also skeptical. Mechanized security shutters<\/a>, installed on some storefront windows in Athens to protect against riots, are another clear sign\u00a0of political stress in Greece.\u00a0Clearly, making the deal is a huge political stress to leaders on both sides. Just like (okay maybe not quite “just like,” but still…) sitting in from of a computer screen doing something\u00a0besides the internet is stressful to most students. In both situations, the actors can’t stomach\u00a0swallowing the pill until the consequences of inaction–a Grexit or a failing grade–loom large and immediate. The media frenzy that only really picks up as\u00a0political\u00a0dealmakers’ deadlines approach, perhaps, reinforce\u00a0this last-minute solution\u00a0phenomenon. A plethora of stories\u00a0headlined\u00a0with words “nightmare<\/a>” and “catastrophe<\/a>” that probe the potential consequences of Grexit, one would assume, are a pretty good kick in the pants for dealmakers. This would be like turning on CNN the night before your essay is due to see an endless stream of pundits argue\u00a0about the potential for you to end up with a career in Port-A-Potty cleaning. While CNN’s wall-to-wall coverage\u00a0might not make you less likely to finish your essay a week before it’s due, it would (probably) make you more likely to actually wrap up your essay instead of letting it slide. Perhaps these deals are so stressful to that they cannot (or are unlikely to) occur in the absence of this type of pressure.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A tangible sign of political stress\u00a0in Greece. Source: NPR Planet Money.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stay tuned for more next week!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is follows up on Part One from last week]. Last week I brought up the question: why have the parties negotiating the future of Greece allowed a seemingly needless series of near catastrophes (followed by last-minute resolutions) to occur?\u00a0One answer might be the reason why you (probably) write your essays the night before they’re due. Collin’s great article from last year\u00a0delves into an economics-flavored analysis of procrastination. If you don’t have time to give it a read–which you should definitely do–the gist is this: “…given the choice between having a good thing ($100) now or later, we tend Continue reading Groundhog Day in Greece (Part Two)<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":388,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/388"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1772"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1777,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1772\/revisions\/1777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}