The November 1 broadcast of ABC World News couldn't have been any clearer about what's happening in Greece: Their pampered, early-retiring workforce is stealing from Americans.

Anchor Diane Sawyer explained:

If you were watching your stocks today, you saw a nosedive. The Dow down nearly 300 points, so, what changed?  Well, blame it on the country of Greece, long criticized for being undisciplined, and now threatening American retirements.

OK, since we probably were all "watching our stocks" on Tuesday--like any other day--why is Greece doing this to us?

ABC correspondent Dan Harris explains how this all works by introducing us to 2 workers. The Greek--Yannis--is a 52-year-old bank teller, already retired for two years (naturally). The other is a 60-year-old Florida resident--Emma--who is  "still having to work around the clock and doesn't have enough savings to retire."

How representative are those workers? While Yannis resembles the Greek worker most familiar in the U.S. media, it's not clear that he's at all typical. This chart, for instance, shows the Greek retirement age isn't all that different from the rest of Europe.

Harris explains that Greeks live it up:

And check this out. While our maximum Social Security payment is around $28,000 a year, over in Greece, where Yannis lives, it's 20 grand more, $48,000 a year.

It's hard to figure out exactly what is being compared here, or where the figures come from. But you get the idea. Harris goes on to say that Greece "is a country of generous benefits, of pools and Porsches," with American workers footing the bill:

And so here is how Emma is now paying for Yannis.

In order to pay for all the retirement packages for people like Yannis, the Greek government borrowed big time from banks all over Europe. Now, Greece says it can't pay. So, those banks are facing huge losses and that could push Europe into a depression. Since America does so much business with Europe, we would be pulled down, too, and that, of course, would hurt Emma's savings.

I'm confused. Emma doesn't have much in the way of savings; even still, it's hard to fathom how that money is at risk. America might get "pulled down" and that would...affect her Social Security checks? There's no explanation for how that could possibly be true. But there is a graphic:

Oh. Now it makes sense, right? You can see the dollars floating out of the U.S. bank right into Europe.

You seem to hear more about Greek retirees than Greek workers, which makes stories like this fuel a sense of outrage at what Harris calls Greek's "fat pensions."

But occasionally another message breaks through, like in this USA Today piece (5/10/10):

ATHENS -- A hard life is about to get harder for Manolis Fylaktidis.

Greece's cash-strapped government is cutting the schoolteacher's $27,300 salary by about $5,300 as part of a dramatic austerity move the prime minister says is needed to pay the country's ballooning debt. "It is difficult now.... We have to change our life because life is too expensive," Fylaktidis says.

Even as the 44-year-old teacher's salary falls, the government is raising the value-added tax on most purchases for the second time in as many months, to 23 percent, and increasing electricity and water charges.

We might live in a very different world if workers in one country saw what they have in common with workers in another country, instead of being made to feel angry about supposedly cushy retirements.

Washington Post correspondent Juan Forero has a piece today (11/4/11) that attempts to compare the Greek economic crisis with other similar debt crises, particularly in Latin America. Unfortunately, he draws some misleading conclusions.

Forero's point is that there's a lot about Greece's problems that are reminiscent of troubles in Argentina and Uruguay just a few years ago. One country chose the right response, and the other is called Argentina:

In a story that may provide a lesson for Europe, one country, Uruguay, that was on the edge of financial oblivion organized a fast, orderly and negotiated response that revived the economy and ended a run on banks. Another, Argentina, spiraled into a chaotic default and remains a pariah in world financial markets.

Forero explains that Uruguay is now "a darling of Wall Street" (he means that in a good way) and boasts a fast-growing economy.  And what about Argentina, that pariah state? The news is grim--the government

still owes about $15 billion to hard-core creditors and has lost judgments in U.S. courts to pay up. With the country still blocked from tapping international capital markets, it is mostly because of booming demand for its agricultural products that Argentina has been lifted from economic calamity.

"Nobody recommends the Argentine approach to anything," said Arturo Porzecanski, a Uruguayan economist and professor of international finance at American University.

The Argentine people seem to think their approach is working--they just re-elected Cristina Kirchner, thanks in no small measure to the booming economy. As economist Mark Weisbrot wrote just before the election in the Guardian (10/22/11):

Since Argentina defaulted on $95bn of international debt nine years ago and blew off the International Monetary Fund, the economy has done remarkably well. For the years 2002-2011, using the IMF's projections for the end of this year, Argentina has chalked up real GDP growth of about 94 percent. This is the fastest economic growth in the Western Hemisphere--about twice that of Brazil, for example, which has also improved enormously over past performance. Since President Fernandez or her late husband Nestor Kirchner, who preceded her as president, were running the country for eight of these nine years, it shouldn't be surprising that voters will reward her with another term.

The benefits of growth don't always trickle down, but in this case, the Argentine government has made sure that many did. Poverty and extreme poverty have been reduced by about two-thirds since their peak in 2002, and employment has increased to record levels. Social spending by the government has nearly tripled in real terms. In 2009, the government implemented a cash transfer program for children that now reaches the households of more than 3.5 million children. It is probably the largest such program, relative to national income, in Latin America.

In short, the Post seems to be saying that it's better to be loved by Wall Street than to fall into an Argentine trap of growth and a substantial reduction in poverty.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's call for a referendum on the EU bailout package seems to have prompted media outlets to rummage through their store of Greek cliches.

The Washington Post's editorial against "Mr. Papandreou's ill-advised announcement of a referendum" led with a classical reference:

Not since the night when soldiers emerged from the belly of a giant wooden horse in ancient Troy has Greece engineered a more stunning surprise.

On the CBS Evening News (11/1/11), Mark Phillips weighed in with a culinary metaphor:

This was supposed to be the week that world leaders gathered in France to chart the next course of the economic battle. All through the week, the demonstrators gathered to tell them what they were doing wrong. Now the whole agenda has been tossed up in the air like a Greek salad.

Is that what people do with Greek salads? I thought it was plates they were supposed to throw around.

And on the Today show (11/2/11), CNBC reporter Mandy Drury skipped the imagery and just vented directly about how irritating she thought Greece was:

Yes, that news that Greece has called a referendum on its bailout scuttled stocks yesterday, and it looks like it could be a drag on stocks today as well. I know, it is so annoying that one small country could have that much of an impact on worldwide markets and indeed, essentially, your 401(k), but there you have it, our globalized and interconnected world.

On a happier note, though, starting today Starbucks is going to collect donations of $5 or more from customers in order to stimulate jobs through its Jobs for USA program. I guess that's just another reason to reach for the java, Natalie.

Well, thank goodness for Starbucks.

The New York Times had a story yesterday (5/21/09) about the test of an Iranian missile "that was capable of striking Israel and parts of Western Europe." This was an important point in the article--reporters David E. Sanger and Nazila Fathi included it in their lead paragraph, and later listed it among "three technologies necessary to field an effective nuclear weapon": "The second is developing a missile capable of reaching Israel and parts of Western Europe, and now the country has several likely candidates."

The article reported that the range of the missile is "believed to be more than 1,200 miles." Which led me to wonder: Which "parts of Western Europe" are within 1,200 miles of Iran? Well, the city in Iran closest to Western Europe is Tabriz, and looking at this distance calculator shows that Tabriz is less than 1,200 miles from...eastern Crete.

Now, Tabriz is not right at the border of Iran, so you could probably launch a missile with a range of 1,200 miles from some part of Iranian soil and have it land in, say, Athens. You certainly couldn't reach Italy, let alone any of the other countries that probably leap to mind when you think of "Western Europe." So why didn't the Times say "Israel and Greece" when describing the missile's potential range? Would that be too, I don't know, unalarming?