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posted by
martyb
on Monday July 06 2015, @08:57AM
from the getting-what-you-asked-for-may-not-be-getting-what-you-want dept.
from the getting-what-you-asked-for-may-not-be-getting-what-you-want dept.
The Greeks voted no to the European Union's terms, despite warnings from the EU that rejecting new austerity terms would set their country on a path out of the Eurozone. 62% voted "No" while 38% voted "Yes".
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Everyone hates me because I'm paranoid.
(Score: 3, Informative) by geb on Monday July 06 2015, @10:51AM
It wasn't a foregone conclusion until this year. Under the previous governments, Greece was (with a lot of hardship and resentment) starting to return to growth. That was enough to signal to the other EU governments that they deserved a bit of slack, and the ESM funds, aka the bailout, were there to bridge a period when their debt repayments would be higher than the long term.
They'd got a pretty sweet deal on their long term debt and over a period of decades, it was going to be very very cheap to maintain. With some assistance in the short term they absolutely could have paid it back, though admittedly, not at a rate high enough for anybody to make a profit on it.
The problems came when Syriza indicated that they weren't interested in growth or reforms, but instead wanted to play politics.
They've got the idea firmly lodged in their head that stimulus spending was the one and only way to fix Greece, but that only works when an otherwise functional and healthy economy needs to mitigate some temporary damage. It's like the equivalent of bed rest to recover from a cold. They weren't willing to see that Greece's economy didn't have a mild cold, it was in late stage rabies.
Syriza's increased spending firmly put an end to any hopes for repayment, and it was at that point, just a few months ago, when it became actually inevitable that they'd default.
Now Greece's creditors are unlikely to offer them anything except advice and deliveries of food and medicine.