I’m borrowing a thought from the insightful Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (to name but a few!) in today’s DT, where he describes the German proposals for Greece as ‘Carthaginian’. (Google, if you will.) The point is that when Carthage lost to Rome in 146 BC (3 – 0) the ensuing ‘peace’ settlement was unforgiving and ruinous. (Not unlike Man Utd’s moral defeat of Liverpool after Suarez-gate.)
The facts indicate that since Greece has never been able to implement any plan involving the collection of taxes and control of its civil service, yesterday’s ‘approval’ by the Parliament is worth less than the paper the local Hansard will waste on recording it. If the Troika of money-lenders (sinners that they are) decides to drop further trillions down the Hellenic drain, it will precipitate revolution in Greece: a phenomenon which has relatively frequently been the result of any attempt at government there.
Better by far, if like a parent out of patience with a profligate teenager, the Troika says no. Then the Greeks can find out what their economy is worth, as opposed to what it costs the rest of Europe.
Boadicea's Chariot 
A E-P also mentioned the fact that Greece was one of the countries that allowed Germany a 50% haircut on its debt in 1953. This meant that Greece lost some of its war reparations and that Britain was forced to borrow more from the USA. But it paved the way for the German economic miracle (Wirtschaftswunder). Pity this event has slipped the memory of Merkel and Schäuble. I’m not saying that Greece could perform the same miracle, but it does not need to be punished in this “Carthaginian” manner. Just as punishment was deemed inappropriate for post-war Germany – bitter memories of what France’s intransigeance at Versailles led to – so Germany should not be forcing Greece into this disastrous austerity.
“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly”?
Surely all/any machinations are only putting off the day?
I would have thought it might be less strain all round to let them go down the drain ‘sooner than later’.
It appears only Germany’s insistence that good money should be thrown after bad!
Got no patience with it, let the EUSSR nightmare be over ASAP.
Should not that be “Unio Europae delenda est” ?
FEEG, maybe that will be the final result!
For all our sakes, Janus, let’s hope so!
Well yes, but it’s not going to be much fun for any of us in this part of the world, and I really feel sorry for the Greeks. They have been let down badly by their government and Euroland.
I think every citizen of every member state of the EU as well as the eurozone has been deceived and betrayed by the whole European hydra.
It may not be fun if Greece opts out / is thrown out of the Eurozone now – but it will be an absolute disaster if the World continues throwing money it does not have at trying to solve the Greek problem.
Sheona and Boadicea.
I cannot disagree with you, but Boadicea it is patently not just a Greek problem, hence my concern. It has much wider ramifications whichever way one looks at it.
Talking to my sister today in Athens she is telling me crime has gone through the roof, the people are having large cuts in salary, in the private sector companies are sacking staff and rehiring some on the new minimum wage or at least less than they were getting.
All the time this is going on the rich still do not pay tax, ship owners are still exempt from tax and the fakilaki system gets bigger.
Now not being an economist I take a simplistic view of all these cuts. Greece needs to raise revenue, so they cut salaries which means less tax intact, less spending and less growth. This does not seem to be the way forward.
The only way for Greece is out of the Euro, devalue, and find some way to tax the rich and cut the civil servants, bearing in mind the civil list includes electricity companies, transport, as well as the normal ones that we all know about.
Greece will be the tinder box for the next war, not a war as the last 2, but a war of the people against the rich, similar to the French revolution or what we are seeing in the Arab states and it will flare around the globe by 2018.
Rick, thank you for that. There was TV story yesterday about Icelend which is further along the road to hell. People with regular, ‘good’ jobs can’t afford food but the banking and political èlite are still swigging bubbly.
More to the point, the Greeks have let themselves down! What a way to run a country and then have the stratospheric cheek to expect other to pay for it!
More fool Germany getting the EUSSR into such expansion and even bigger fool UK for whinging and coughing up rather than voting with our feet.
I really do have no patience with the whole thing, ludicrous rubbish from inception, anyone with half a brain cell could see the North and South of Europe were totally incompatible fiscally.
I rather tend to agree with rr that there will be a ‘war’ of socioeconomic levelling in a lot of places, getting somewhat overdue considering the ever widening discrepancies between the rich and poor, or more now the rich and the rest of us!
Seems we don’t have to worry!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/9079430/Greece-wont-see-a-cent-of-the-great-bail-out.html
Not quite true. The Greeks have consistently voted themselves extra largesse in terms of pension, welfare and retirement age, expecting the EU to cough up. Even the EU are not that stupid. The Greeks should never have been allowed to join the Euro in the first place.
FEEG.
Yes, but I was talking about the average Greek citizen, but then as you say, why was Greece ever accepted in to the Euro?
Stupid decision all round, I agree.