The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks. . .

. . . But the Greek bureaucrats intend to get paid, no matter what. Behold our future:

Dozens of civil servants occupied a government printing building Saturday in the latest expression of public anger against debt-driven austerity measures as Greece's premier vowed they would pay off.

The sit-in by interior ministry workers in Athens began late Friday, after a fresh bout of nationwide strikes and protests.

The protesters unfurled a banner in front of the national printing office scrawled with the words "Occupation", and "Enough is enough," police said, in a bid to prevent the latest round of parliament-approved austerity measures from being published in the government gazette.

And who could blame the bureaucrats? They get a pretty sweet deal, as Mark Steyn points out:

That's the point Greece is at. Its socialist government has been forced into supporting a package of austerity measures. The Greek people's response is: Nuts to that. Public sector workers have succeeded in redefining time itself: Every year, they receive 14 monthly payments. You do the math. And for about seven months' work - for many of them the workday ends at 2:30 p.m. When they retire, they get 14 monthly pension payments. In other words: Economic reality is not my problem. I want my benefits. And, if it bankrupts the entire state a generation from now, who cares as long as they keep the checks coming until I croak?

One other thing -- these tireless public servants get to retire at 58. What's the problem with that? Well, among other things, there simply aren't enough private sector Greeks around to foot the bill for all this. Steyn:

What's happening in the developed world today isn't so very hard to understand: The 20th century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they've reached the next stage in social democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1, or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: 10 grandparents have six kids have four grandkids - i.e., the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 "lowest-low" fertility - the point from which no society has ever recovered. And compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe.

So you can't borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don't have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when 10 grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around?

Well, in the case of the Greeks, they were hoping that maybe, as members of the EU, that their other partners might pick up the tab, especially Germany. But the Germans have their own problems:

Unfortunately, Germany is no longer an economic powerhouse. As Angela Merkel pointed out a year ago, for Germany, an Obama-sized stimulus was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. Over 30 percent of German women are childless; among German university graduates, it's over 40 percent. And for the ever dwindling band of young Germans who make it out of the maternity ward, there's precious little reason to stick around. Why be the last handsome blond lederhosen-clad Aryan lad working the late shift at the beer garden in order to prop up singlehandedly entire retirement homes? And that's before the EU decides to add the Greeks to your burdens. Germans, who retire at 67, are now expected to sustain the unsustainable 14 monthly payments per year for Greeks who retire at 58.

And thus Steyn gets to the point: somebody might pay, but don't expect them to pay on your terms, as the Greeks are discovering:

The European Union has concluded that the Greek government's austerity measures are insufficient and, as a condition of bailout, has demanded something more robust. Greece is no longer a sovereign state: It's General Motors, and the EU is Washington, and the Greek electorate is happy to play the part of the United Auto Workers -everything's on the table except anything that would actually make a difference. In practice, because Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland are also on the brink of the abyss, a "European" bailout will be paid for by Germany.

Except the Germans won't be able to pay, either. So who will? It won't be the U.S. -- we're in debt up to our eyeballs, too, much of it held by the Chinese. China? Not likely -- they have money now but also have worse demographic issues than Europe or the U.S., which will become obvious in the next 10-15 years when all the young Chinese men start looking for brides who do not exist, because they were aborted. The Greek electorate can support the bureaucrats doing their sit-in, but it won't get them paid because, in the end, no one is going to have the money. The Greek government has been running a Ponzi scheme.

None of this is surprising -- these trends have been in place for almost half a century now, throughout the developed world. And our kids won't be able to maintain the status quo, nor will they want to, either. But that's where we are. Steyn explains why:

We hard-hearted, small-government guys are often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government. Once a chap's enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he couldn't give a hoot about the general societal interest. He's got his, and to hell with everyone else. People's sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense.

The party is over in Athens. They may not want to hear it, but it is.

Meanwhile, we've got our issues here, but things could get a lot worse. We could be like Greece. Fortunately, for the most part we aren't, despite the efforts of the governments of California, New York and a few other places. What boggles the mind is this: Greece is a comprehensive welfare state, socialist in government and in scope. And it is failing. Despite this evidence, President Obama and his party want us to have the same setup for this country, a comprehensive welfare state. This is why Obama continues to push for Obamacare even though the majority of Americans have made it clear they do not want such blandishments.

I will give President Obama and his allies the benefit of the doubt and assume that they have good intentions. I would prefer not to travel the road that is paved with their good intentions, though, because I know where the road leads.