How grasshoppers triumphed over ants in Europe

TO EXPLAIN A complicated story, it helps to have a fable. Those who watched the last euro-zone crisis often turned to Aesop’s story of the ant, who worked hard all summer ahead of the coming winter, and the grasshopper, who lazed about during warm weather only to come begging for a handout when the cold arrived. The euro zone, in this simplistic telling, was split between ants and grasshoppers. On the one side were rich, northern countries such as Germany that reformed their economies and spent little during the long summer of the 2000s. On the other were profligate grasshoppers, such as Greece and Italy, that ran up chunky deficits or left their inefficient economies untouched, causing misery when the financial crisis hit. For the ants, this was vindication. When the grasshoppers came begging, they were forced to live like ants, with strict rules on spending and often painful economic reform. Chirps of complaint were ignored. Ants ruled.