They were warned

[Suff]

time and time again. Don't crush the Greeks, don't sacrifice the Greeks on the altar of a tottering Euro, don't destroy their economy.

Well, now we are all living with the consequences.

Whilst all the middle of the road governments in the rest of the EU may be trying to rationalise this as "leverage", the reality is that a neo communist regime has been voted in to Athens and they will stand with their ideological partners, not with those who hung them out to dry.

Expect more games and pain to come out of this as time goes on. We haven't seen the last or the worst of what this government is going to do. Everyone should have thought about this, the EU, the ECB, Germany, Holland, France, but they were too engrossed in their own problems to even think about what they were doing to Greece. To their credit, only the IMF is on record saying that more debt forgiveness should be allowed and that the burden was too high and would cause too much damage to the Greek economy, reducing their ability to repay and deepening the misery the people would have to suffer. Even the IMF estimates were way below the reality.

Expect more fun and games as time goes on. I smell panic. Grexit is now on a clock whereas, before, everyone though Tsipras would be reasonable to some extent. Clearly they are too involved in their own belief of the political system to realise that Tsipras was telling the unvarnished truth. Well slightly varnished, he knows that the EU is more likely to throw them out of the Euro than not. However his position remains the same. He doesn't want to leave the Euro. He never promised that the Euro would not force them out.....

[cromwell]

Maybe this is just payback?

Since the fall of the USSR many countries of the old eastern bloc like Poland have joined the EU. The USA are quite happy with this. Weren't they going to site missiles in Poland pointing at Russia?

The EU pumped millions into the Ukraine to make them EU friendly. The West has extended it's boundaries right up to the Russians front door. The Russians don't like this.

So if Greece gets chummy with Russia maybe we only have ourselves to blame.

[Workingman]

Also an element of US paranoia?

This could be a case of American media using the 'attack is the best form of defence' rule to deflect criticism away from the US role in the Ukraine.

Mikhail Gorbachev has accused the US of precipitating a new Cold War, one that could turn into a "hot" war and did not rule out the possibility that Washington would risk taking steps toward military confrontation. He accused the US of 'triumphalism' over the collapse of Communism and was convinced that Putin protects Russia’s interests better than anyone else and is right to stand up to the US. He might not be far off the mark.

[Suff]

Actually this is more like the UK Labour government of the 70's. I recall Foot going and making his visits to the USSR. Also, during the 80's, I learned that that government had signed contracts for key spares for our main battle tanks to be manufactured in Russia.....

That is more of what I see. The US would like to spin it as "negotiating" with the EU to fight the debt angle. But I think it is deeper than that. These guys are mainly communists. I also think that they are looking to take the 13 votes of the hard core Communist party rather than the 15 right wingers they have today.

It's going to be interesting whichever way it turns. It's been a long time since we've had a western government so left wing that they are Russian apologists.....

[Workingman]

The story is media game-playing.

There is not a shred of evidence for what the article accuses. If anything, the Greeks have acted in conciliatory fashion since the election and have tried to assure the Eurozone that Armageddon is not at hand.

However, that is not the news the hawks want to hear, it is a lot splicer to make out that the end is nigh.

[Suff]

I don't know, cancelling the asset sales. Which were a key part of the bailout package. Seems to me to be directly what they promised and directly confrontational.

Ditto sacking the expensive consultants employed to monitor the compliance with the bailout terms and replace them with 800 cleaners sacked as part of the Austerity measures, seems to me to be directly confrontational as well.

I don't think that raising the minimum wage by 7-8% or reinstating all the low income pensions to their status, as they were before Austerity, is posturing either. They will do it and it will be direct head to head confrontation with the Troika.

However, over Russia, the pundits want to see this as just another thing that they can do to make the changes already made, plus the changes planned, stick. I don't see it that way. I see them as Ideologically compatible... Having a regime like that in the EU is a problem and people are just waking up to it.

They are also waking up to the power of the ballot box. I paraphrase. Come election time you can scare some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time. However if you try to scare all of the people all of the time, eventually they will realise that what they are being stampeded into is guaranteed to be bad, whilst what they are being told to fear only "might" be bad. Greece has finally realised that. Democracy is an interesting idea, if you tell the people that they are the masters of their own destiny enough times, then they might actually just choose that destiny no matter how much you don't want them to. They only want the people to think they are the masters of their own destiny. What they really want is for the people to do what they are told is best for them.... Now the Greeks are listening to someone else who is telling them a different "best for you" story.

This is causing a lot of fear in EUland. Because for all their fine words they have created a towering edifice of Merde in which people are given the vision of control backed by a core of power which is not responsible to the people at all. Of course, if the people choose radically anti EU governments, then the council and commission will be filled with anti EU people and the power will change.

I'm sure it has the EU power mongers up all night worrying right now. The UK? Who cares about the UK? The EU will continue without the UK (they think). But Spanish elections in December. Italian political instability equivalent to what we have seen in Greece..... That has them worried. Also France breaking step with Germany and siding with the bankrupt. Not a match made in heaven. After all, Spain, Italy and France are almost twice German GDP.....

As I said at the beginning. They were warned not to do this to the PIIGS. If the house of cards falls, they only have one place to look for blame. This is why I believe they will savage Greece and force them out of the Euro. Because they have to make the PIIS (interesting acronym), scared to go the same way as Greece.

But, what happens if Greece recovers? What happens if Greece grows? What happens if the Greeks start to become wealthy? They have been warned and they are not listening. When the shout goes up "The King is naked", then the Eurozone is going to see dark days indeed....

[Suff]

Some better reporting on the Greek issue.

I agree with the three statements on page2. Although I believe that Tsipras will continue to deliver on his promises to the Greek people whilst negotiating with the Lenders. This is something nobody expects. I see it happening starting tomorrow.