Saturday Night Live's Seth Meyers had a funny segment on last night's Weekend Update explaining the Greek debt crisis. Here's the full transcript for the piece.
On Thursday, Greek prime minister George Papandreou reversed his decision to hold a referendum in which the Greek voters would have been allowed to decide between accepting the terms of a European aid package, or leaving the Euro altogether. Austerity, referendums, economic crisis, it sounds complicated, but I'll explain in A Closer Look at Europe.
It's actually very simple. Europe said to Greece, we will give you the money you need, but you have to change your ways. But the Greeks are not good at changing their ways. They've had the same coffee cup design for 5,000 years. But it's too easy to just blame the Greeks. I also want to blame everyone who thought lending the Greeks money was a good idea.
You don't even have to go to Europe to see that Greeks are bad with money. Just go to a Greek diner here in New York. Two people eating, fourteen people working? And you can get a turkey sandwich the size of a dictionary for $3. It's not a solid business plan.
What did you expect from a country whose main export is doctor's office paintings? It's a yogurt-based economy. The only thing that works together in Greece is eyebrows.
With that said, I love following the Euro debt crisis, because with all due respect to Brangelina, the most interesting couple on Earth is these two, German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy. How great is this pairing? They couldn't look more like a German woman and a French man if they were cartoons in a Tintin book.
It's up to these two to hold Europe together, and they're not getting any help at all. The leader of the next biggest country in the Eurozone is Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is going on trial for having sex with hookers. So basically, Berlusconi's best economic plan is "the money's on the dresser".
Two weeks ago, Slovakia said, "Hey, we're not sure about the bailout." And Europe said, "Why would we care about what you think, Slovakia?" And Slovakia said, "Because we're in the Euro, and all the votes have to be unanimous."
Unanimous! Seventeen countries, and it has to be unanimous! I can't get three friends to agree on a restaurant. Can you imagine how hard it would be if none of us spoke the same language, and our grandparents killed each other in World War II?
Why did you ever think you could get on the same currency, Europe? You guys have shared a tiny continent for 2,000 years, and you still don't speak the same language. Belgium has two languages, and it's the size of a Midwestern college campus.
But I'm still pulling for these two crazy kids right here. Germany and France, Germance. If romance is two people in love, Germance is two people staying together for their kids. I don't think it's going to work out, but I like that they're trying.
(voiceover) This has been A Closer Look at Europe.