Conspiracy Theories

Although I usually encounter the normal bunch of of pictures/comments/likes on facebook, I occasionally find something interesting, such as what I saw yesterday:

"Everything happens for a reason. But sometimes things happen because you are stupid and make bad decisions"

Well, this pretty much sums up my thoughts about Europe at the moment. A few months ago, a Cypriot acquaintance I met on a journey in the UK told me that "It's a conspiracy thing. It doesn't make sense that our banks should face trouble from one moment to the next. It's all because of the (enter nation of choice here. He chose the US)"

Really? It was a foreign officer's fault who told the Bank of Cyprus and the Popular Bank to invest heavily in Greece wasn't it? (and by heavily, I mean that more than 50% of their government bond portfolio was invested in Greek bonds) Or was it some strange conspiracy which drove the current government to continuous budget deficits? How about the fact that roughly 50% of the houses in Cyprus are without title deeds? Well he/she must be one shrewd conspirator!

I was reminded of this after I watched a short movie yesterday. The Greek in the movie was under the notion that in Greece's subsoil, large quantities of mineral (uranium, gold, oil, etc) existed. Thus, the "bad foreigners" wanted to eliminate the Greeks, make them starve, and thus exploit their riches. Yes... Well I guess its the foreigners who made Greece such a Kleptocratic nation and not its politicians and those who elected them! I would assume that the economic meltdown was not due to the extreme amounts of allowances and benefits the public sector received. If a large foreign corporation would like to invest in Greece (to extract minerals??), one should consider it very fortunate as it would reduce unemployment and boost investment and consumption. Oh, and conspiracy theorist, you do not need destroyed nations to set up a business. People actually prefer more stable and peaceful regimes. 

Although I may have stated it before, I believe that conspiracy theories are just a way to say "Well, it's not my/our fault, some supreme power has led me/us to this". This is the same as an ostrich hiding its head in the sand, or hiding behind one's finger. We think that this is saving us, nevertheless, the rest of the world has a different opinion.