With an eye on what's happening in Greece, and after seeing some version of Aesop's fable of the ant and grasshopper posted on one too many conservatives' Facebook walls — I give you my own take on the old yarn. A bit truncated, for space reasons — but updated in a thoroughly modern way.

Once there lived an ant and a grasshopper in a grassy meadow. All day long the ant would work hard, collecting grains of wheat from the farmer's field far away and storing them in his larder.

The grasshopper would look at him and laugh. "Why do you work so hard, ant?" he would say. "Why waste the sunshine in labor and toil?" The ant would ignore him, and just hurry to the field a little faster. This would make the grasshopper laugh even louder, and he would hop away across the meadow, singing and dancing merrily.

But soon came the cold winds of winter, and the grasshopper had no food. "Please, ant," he said, "I beg of you, please give me some wheat. Without it I will starve."

The ant began to rebuke the grasshopper for his lazy, foolish ways, when a second, cunning ant whispered in the first ant's ear.

"Perhaps," said the cunning ant, "we might come to an arrangement."

The grasshopper, the cunning ant suggested, could be given enough to survive — not as a gift, but a loan, to be paid back with interest.

The hardworking ant considered this. Admittedly, such a scheme might compromise his resources. But the ant could, in fact, book significant increases in his reserves based on what the grasshopper would ultimately be scheduled to repay.

And what prosperity this would generate, for all! The grasshopper, who had amassed no resources, would suddenly be awash in plenty! The ant's resources, on paper, would grow and grow with little to no additional labor required! The ant would have plenty, in perpetuity; indeed, the ant could plan his entire future on the basis of these expected returns.

How ingenious, this mathematical engineering! How beneficial for all God's creatures!

Until, that is, came the cold winter day when the grasshopper had consumed all of his resources. Not only could the grasshopper not pay the interest that was owed, the grasshopper could not remit the actual principal, as there was nothing left to remit.

The grasshopper begged for more, and initially the ant was willing to lend more, on punitive terms. But soon that, too, was gone. As the grasshopper starved, the ant panicked. His own reserves were now threatened; and now he would provide more for the grasshopper only if the grasshopper committed to strict "austerity" measures. The grasshopper must agree to reduce his own consumption to near-starvation levels, so that scheduled payments might continue until spring, whenever it might come, bolstered the grasshopper's ability to pay.

The grasshopper, and indeed all the grasshoppers, grew increasingly angry at the hardships now imposed upon them. And yet the ant, indeed all the ants, insisted upon the harsh terms, for unless the grasshoppers were made to repay that which clearly could never be repaid, the entire ant system would collapse. And the ant system was too big to be allowed to fail.

We'll end our little fairy tale here, as our real-life fairy tale in Greece — and, don't kid yourself, ultimately here at home — is still in the process of playing out.

But I wonder, who do you think is really at fault, in our version of Aesop? The grasshopper, for being so foolish?

Or the ants, for being too "smart" for their own good — and ours?

Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. Email him at gsmart@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-8817.