Merkel to Greeks; no relief from austerity enema

One can only marvel at the myopic arrogance Frau Merkel demonstrates in her proclamations to the people of Greece. We hope the new government in Greece will stay the course in governing, finally, for the people of Greece instead of for German banks and foreign bondholders.

Let's not forget that much of Greece's accumulated debt is the result of extravagant military spending over the past thirty years, spending always applauded by the same suspects who now expect the Greek people to endure generations of making do with less to atone for the profligacy of the NATO acolytes who ran up the debt.

There are other problems of course. The Greek elite have been world leaders in the art and science of tax evasion ever since taxes were first invented. (by the Greeks, if I'm not mistaken!) PM Tsipras and his finance minister have let it be known they intend to change that, and hopefully they will not be cowed by the threats of the tycoons to move abroad. Since they're not paying their taxes anyway, that's not exactly much of a loss.

The main reason for Merkel's dire warning and Schaeuble's patronizing tone, as if scolding an errant child, is that these champions of the decaying old order realize history has arrived at a moment where too many are seeing that the emperor is stark naked.

"There's no arguing with us about this..."

Let's not argue then. The truth is, the EU and NATO need Greece far more than Greece needs them.

Greeks grow weary of "austerity enema"

As the Greek economy gets progressively sicker from this madness imposed on them by Frau Merkel and the IMF, the economic doctors supervising this slow-motion disaster have a prescription; more of the same.

Have you ever asked yourself why it is that when a private company collapses under an onerous debt burden, they are either bailed out by the public purse if they are deemed "too big to fail", or they are allowed to collapse, leaving the culpable to walk away from the wreckage?

But when a nation state is in the same straits, millions of people are expected to make sacrifices, for decades if necessary, to ensure that their creditors are repaid.

Mark Weisbrot has written an excellent article about the only reasonable solution to the Greek dilemma; an exit from the Euro.

If present trends continue, that's exactly what will happen, and it will be the left-tilting Syriza Party that leads the country out of the Euro.

Something that should have happened two or three years ago.