My dear friends are leaving to attend a wedding in Greece in a few weeks. I wonder if they will still be using the Euro or the ruble!
It appears that Greece will be unceremoniously asked to leave the EU party. After years of destabilizing austerity, the economic powers that be have decided to no longer pay the Germans and the French any more of the money that Greece has borrowed over the past decades. Tsipras has followed the streets, the demographics of unemployment meant a serious threat to social stability if the next round of budgetary demands were agreed to and, to be frank, I’m unconvinced that the EU deal was being negotiated in good faith on behalf of the IMF.
The larger questions of the future of the European Union aren’t distant ideas to contemplate: there is now little common purpose beyond defence in the European Union. The migration issue has fractured the already skittish national electorates and shown the fractures that investment euros used to plaster over.
The even bigger issue is the very real possibility that Greece will now turn eastward into the Russian orbit, putting ever greater pressure on the West in the Ukraine. Putin would position himself as the saviour of Greece!
//edit – many news outlets are pointing out that the “yes” side is more about “moral hazard” than economics.
// another edit – why does austerity mean cuts to social programs? Why doesn’t austerity mean tax increases? Aren’t both austere? The Guardian has a good piece on how the IMF is using austerity and the Euro to destroy social programs here.
Austerity + “war on terror” = fascism
