I’ve been meaning to comment on this for a week or two now (ever since the ninth or tenth escalation – I’ve lost track – of the Greek debt crisis began last month), but, since Reuters was kind enough to provide the photo below in this story from earlier today, it seemed like a good time to offer a few thoughts on obesity and bailouts.

Of course, I know nothing about Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos in general or about what kind of a job he’s been doing in trying to keep the Greek government from defaulting on its debt and plunging all the world into another Lehman-style financial market meltdown, but, in a world where perceptions are very important, it seems it would help things along a bit if the top finance official of a spendthrift nation being bailed out after years of profligacy they kept hidden from the rest of the world wasn’t morbidly obese.

Tales of woe are emerging from Greece at an accelerating pace – government workers who become suicidal after learning that they’re being downsized and the proliferation of soup kitchens – but, should the nation default on its debt, some of that misery could spread elsewhere, according to the graphic below from this Spiegel story, even to Germany.

Also see this related collection of photos from Spiegel and this New York Times Magazine story from yesterday about the rapidly changing Greek lifestyle. It’s not all good.