In Greece, which has touched off a fiscal wildfire that threatens to burn across Europe and could scorch the United States, female pastry chefs and hairdressers can retire with government pensions at age 50 because their jobs are considered “arduous and unhealthy.”

Males in those professions must wait until the decrepit age of 55 to knock off work for good.

When their government, struggling to reduce debt, recently proposed changing the pension system, including pushing back the average retirement age from 61 to 63, thousands of Greeks took to the streets in protest.

Although elements of the Grecian storyline may appear absurd, Americans can’t afford smugness toward their European neighbors. Greek’s debt crisis today may be this nation’s tomorrow.

Much of Europe has always considered that Americans work too hard or too much. The issue is not how much leisure time is enough, but who pays for it. From Aesop’s day, the idle have required support from the productive. An imbalance is a crisis waiting to happen.

Already, the U.S. national debt stands at nearly $13 trillion, which amounts to almost $118,000 per taxpayer. And it’s expected to climb by more than $1 trillion this year. And next year. And the year after that.

The U.S. government’s accumulation of debt is clearly unsustainable over the long term. But, much like Greece’s government in previous years, U.S. leaders continue to add entitlement programs and pour money into projects as if the federal deficit and the national debt were of no concern. Although congressional leaders and the president talk about confronting the deficit, they’ve done nothing except expand entitlements.

In recent days U.S. stock markets have been rocked by sharp sell-offs as fears spread that Europe’s problems could slow or even reverse America’s economic recovery. As a result, the debt of one relatively small nation in Europe led to the loss of large amounts of money from Americans’ retirement funds and other investment accounts. Imagine the turmoil that would ensue if this nation, because of unsustainable debt, even approaches the danger zone that Greece now occupies.

It’s easy on this side of the Atlantic to wonder why anyone ever thought that a national economy could sustain a system in which pastry chefs can retire at age 50. But future generations of Americans may well wonder the same about those responsible for the stewardship of this nation today.