It looks like the rest of Europe has finally wised up to the fact that Alexis Tsipras has been playing them for chumps. It should be obvious to everyone now that Tsipras and his far-left Syriza party have no intention of reforming Greece’s bloated welfare state, they just wanted to pretend to as long as the rest of Europe was willing to underwrite it in exchange for pretending to reform. But lately even the pretense of reform has become intolerable. They want debt forgiveness and Europe to continue paying their bills, and they’re not going to budge until they get it, or until they totally destroy the Greek economy. You know, whichever.
Europe seems to finally have said “Enough!”
Other Greek links:
Might the European Central Bank impose capital controls on Greece (ala Cyprus) to force a change in the Greek government? Since the Greek banking system only exists at the mercy of ECB-backstopping, this could very well be the easiest way out of the crisis for everyone (even, weirdly, Tsipras and Syriza, who will still be able to claim they never gave in to Troika demands…)
“The latest Greek negotiating strategy is to demand a ransom to desist threatening suicide. Such blackmail might work for a suicide bomber. But Greece is just holding a gun to its own head — and Europe does not need to care very much if it pulls the trigger.”
“For the creditors, the test of whether Mr. Tsipras really wants Greece to remain in the eurozone comes down to a simple question: Is Syriza willing or able to reform Greece’s public sector?” Syriza wants to reform Greece’s public sector the way O. J. Simpson wants to find the real killers.
Gameplanning Greek outcomes. (Warning: Autoplaying video. Up yours, Bloomberg.)
Tags: Alexis Tsipras, Budget, Cyprus, European Central Bank, European Debt Crisis, Eurozone, Foreign Policy, Greece, Syriza, Welfare State
This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2015 at 9:17 AM and is filed under Budget, Foreign Policy, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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