Final Word from Thursday, June 30, 2011
If you wanted to resolve the growing crisis of prison overcrowding, would you askthe inmates to reform the penal code? Let's see, by making murder, rape and aggravatedrobbery legal, 7.4% of the prison beds could be freed up. A ridiculous thought,right? Who would put the murderers, rapists and muggers in charge of penal reform?But isn't this what we're doing in terms of financial reform, with the main differencebeing that the political and financial criminals haven't been booked and processed?We wrote yesterday about the overly optimistic Czech "reform budget" fornext year that could easily be a one-way ticket to Greece, and now the EU and IMFare prescribing a rescue for Greece that merely delays the day of reckoning theretoo. Will the political and financial criminals ever learn that the cure for overindebtednessis not another loan, any more than the cure for murder to is murder again?
Glossary of difficult words
inmate - a person confined to an institution, such as a prison or hospital;
aggravated (robbery) - (of an offense) made more serious by attendant circumstances, such as use of a deadly weapon;
mugger - someone who attacks and robs (mugs) another in a public place;
booked and processed - taking an official record of an offender, including fingerprinting and photographing;
day of reckoning - judgment day.