On Monday, we learned that Greece's SYRIZA government, elected on a platform of opposing austerity and backed by a referendum reinforcing that message, had turned quisling, agreeing to a humiliating and vindictive continuation of austerity in exchange for the possibility that the EU might give them more money to give to Germany's bankers. Its a terrible deal which will make things worse in Greece rather than better, and not just economicly - SYRIZA having joined PASOK and New Democracy as quislings, Greeks who want a government which works for them rather than German bankers really only have Golden Dawn, who are actual Nazis, to turn to. Meanwhile, it has also utterly discredited the European Union as a democratic institution, and made it clear that is is instead a tool for the economic domination and subjugation of other countries by Germany. If Germany doesn't like your government or its policies, they will economicly carpet-bomb you, then get the ECB to trigger a bank run to force regime change. No sane or democratic country should belong to this institution, and voters who want to actually control their own countries and pursue policies other than NeoLiberalism should be voting to get out ASAP.
And then today we learn that the IMF doesn't think the deal will work anyway:
The International Monetary Fund has warned that Greece will require far more generous debt relief than is currently on offer from its creditors, as MPs in Athens prepare for a crucial vote on Wednesday on a new bailout plan. An IMF report leaked to Reuters shows that Greece’s public debt is likely to peak at 200% of its national income within the next two years, with the risk that the actual outcome could be even worse.
[...]
The report highlights the IMF’s scepticism about Greece’s ability to meet the ultra-tough budget targets insisted upon by its European creditors, and suggests that Athens should receive a 30-year grace period before it has to start paying off its debts.
Putting into question the fund’s involvement in the bailout, the report paints a far darker picture of Greece’s public finances than that contained in the blueprint released at the end of the marathon eurozone leaders’ summit on Monday. “The dramatic deterioration in debt sustainability points to the need for debt relief on a scale that would need to go well beyond what has been under consideration to date – and what has been proposed by the ESM,” the IMF said, referring to the European stability mechanism bailout fund, which will be used to bankroll the Greek bailout.
But as Germany opposes actual debt forgiveness (because a) it means admitting that the money is lost; and b) it reduces political control for them to get their quisling NeoLiberal friends back in power), its not going to happen. So the upshot of the IMF's message is that Greece would have been better off walking away, repudiating this onerous debt, and making a new start. And that would probably have saved them from Nazis too.
