Greece is in Depression with a capital D. And what do the troika propose?... More austerity which will guarantee a deepening of the economic decline.
How can Greece possibly repay its debts with a shrinking economy? The ideological stupidity of the Northern Europeans is astounding. They appear to want to punish Greece for old transgressions, but this is not an economic argument for rectifying a problem that the Europeans help to create by admitting Greece into the Eurozone in the first place and then doing nothing about the behaviour of German and French banks.  The Germans seem to have forgotten the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles which imposed onerous reparation conditions which Germany could not afford and which triggered social and economic chaos in Germany.
Who knows where the meltdown in Greece will go, but at least they won't be marching on Europe and putting people in concentration camps.

Greek bail-out

Photo: Reuters

Total debt pile:

 

€320bn

Greece still owed:

         €7.2bn

Debt settled by:

          2057

---

How did Greece get here?

In January left-wing government Syriza promised to end years of austerity measures but remain a member of the eurozone

What went wrong?

Negotiations descended into acrimony. Creditors want economic reforms in return for more aid, but Syriza won't budge on key election promises

When is the deadline?

June 30 - when Greece's bail-out programme expires and it owes €1.6bn to the IMF

What if they don't pay?

Greece will still be in the eurozone, but will get no further aid. The central bank could stop providing money to Greek banks forcing the government to issue an alternative currency

Merkel repeats there can be no negotiations on new bailout before referendum - The German chancellor is giving a speech at the Bundestag, where she has maintained her position against on pre-referendum negotiations. Merkel said: "I will reiterate over and over that the doors remains open for talks - we owe it to Greek people and to Europe," adding that any further talks would have to involve the IMF.  She also said that a referendum is a legitimate democratic exercise. "But I also want to be clear - it is democratic and legitimate right for the EZ-18 (eurozone minus Greece) to have opinion on the Greek referendum - because it affects all." She added that Greece can't cause "economic catastrophe in Europe", but added "compromise at any cost is not possible. Otherwise Europe will be lost." 

"This is not about several billion Euros - this is fundamentally about how EU can stay competitive in the world"...European Commission vice president Valdis Dombrovskis is speaking in Brussels today. He confirms that Brusels has received two letters from Athens, and the Commission is discussing a new two year request after yesterday's expiration.  What will the conditions be?

We still don't know the terms attached to the loan. Mr Dombrovskis says any new ESM loan has a “procedure under the ESM treaty as to how this request is evaluated. And should the eurogroup decide to support the request, discussions will be held on the conditionality of the new programme”.

“We do not have a programme on which conditionality we can discuss, but those discussions on those prior actions will build in a possible new ESM programme" he says.

I think the Best Economic System is a proper combination of Publicly Owned Essential Industries, and the rest of the Economy would be Regulated Free Enterprise with Free and Fair Competition, and where Every country had its Own Publicly Ownership of the Banking System.  I met a Person who told me that the reason the Capitalists cannot create Full Employment, and why they will Not allow Socialists to create Full Employment is because they are working for the Evil Invisible Demons, and the Evil Invisible Demons who control the European Union want People to suffer, and they Lament that their former Servant Hitler is not here today.  There is one thing that Evil Capitalists need their Money for, and it is Not to make more Money, because they have enough and they can Print as much as they want.  According to what a Person told me, that the Real Reason is to Satisfy their Secret Activity of having Trained Themselves to enjoy the Best Orgasms Only because an Invisible Demon or Rebel Angel has entered into them, because they have caused Suffering to other People, and that is what their Money buys them, and this includes some of the Females and some of the Males in Euro-America.  He said that these Euro-American Capitalists are the Psychopathic Big Bankers and their Puppet Psychopathic Euro-American Elites who are Hopelessly Addicted to this Evil Sickness, and that they need Therapy.  He said that Euro-American Plutocrats and their Puppet Politicians both Male and Female know how to present themselves in Public as being Normal People, but in Reality are Deranged, and these Facts are not exaggerations, but they are Facts with the Abundant Evidence for those who have Studied these Facts.   I found a News Article which is more Honest than the Euro Reich Nazis are, and it is Titled: The only reason the EU would force Greece to leave the euro is to punish it , at http://www.smh.com.au/world/th...

There's plenty of talk about ELA being pulled from Greece at the end of the month, but the ECB could still significantly tighten the squeeze on banks while keeping the umbilical cord of emergency funding alive.  The governing council could do this by raising the haircut they demand from the banks in return for the emergency funding. President Draghi has said the current haircut will be reviewed. Any more to tighten the screw through the collateral rules may inexorably lead to some for of capital controls.  More from Barclays:  If there is overwhelming evidence that a deal is out of reach, the quality of Greek collateral would drop and the ECB would very likely have to react by increasing haircuts as early as next week, before the end-of-month expiration of the IMF programme. In turn, this could lead to temporary bank controls, possibly of the type imposed in Cyprus in 2013. The ECB's governing council is set to reassess the state of the banking system on Monday, report Reuters.   This is the day EU leaders have convened an emergency meeting to thrash out their differences. It also the day when ECB representatives told finance ministers on Thursday that the banks might not be able to open.  Well, they've been handed a reprieve today for a while at least. Interesting to note that the €3bn buffer had previously been enough to keep the banks afloat for a week. Now it seems, it's barely enough for two days.

A €131m program which will help break down digital barriers in the Digital Single Market (DSM) was adopted in the European Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy Committee today.

"Many new digital services in Europe such as electronic mobile health applications crucially depend on EU-wide standards and smooth operation across our internal borders. This new programme will help interoperability and give more flexibility and thus take us a huge step forward to achieving a true internal Digital Single Market", said Michał Boni MEP, the EPP Group Shadow Rapporteur on the dossier.  The Industry Committee adopted the update of the so-called ISA2 Programme which will bring public administration, businesses and citizens all over the EU closer to speaking the same language when they use digital services on their computer, tablet or smartphone. The ISA Programme was first introduced in 1995 and the new ISA2 Programme covers the period from 2016-2020. The aims of the programme are to establish electronic connections, foster cooperation among public administrators in Europe, make information accessible on the internet and to help implement electronic services across Europe. "Better connections in the digital Europe are essential because more and more citizens are working and relocating inside the EU and businesses trade and operate cross-border. They often have to deal electronically with administrations in different Member States", Boni concluded.  Boni emphasised that many areas in the EU such as the internal market, environment, justice and home affairs, customs and taxation, health and public procurement will benefit from the new ISA2 Program.

The Euroministers were set this weekend to convene another Euromeeting, to discuss the Eurocrisis engulfing Euromember Greece and the possibility of a Eurodefault unleashing havoc upon the Eurosystem, Euromarkets, Europe, Europeans, the Eurozone, and the Euro. Eurosnacks and Eurorefreshments will naturally be served at the Euromeeting. The Eurodiscussions are expected to focus primarily on finding appropriate Eurosolutions to the Euroemergency. Brussels is concurrently staging a global Urologists Convention and also a summit of leading world organic Urea fertilizer manufacturers. Taxi drivers in Brussels, who mainly speak Urdu, have been instructed to take care that the three groups are all shuttled to the correct venues.  The best solution for the Greeks is to leave the Euro Zone, the Euro currency is not fit for purpose and does not match the Greek economy. For some reason Greeks hold onto the feeling of inferiority if not in the currency. But most countries in Europe will have to face the fact that the Euro is not suitable for them either. Maybe 3 countries in Europe, is the currency fit for purpose the Germans, Netherlands and maybe Austria everybody else it has a negative impact. The ECB has hired several firms outside the EU, to run the numbers and evaluate performance of members. Almost all these reports have been shelved by the EU. Common theme is to go back to original currencies to promote growth and cut EU regulation, while pushing for labor and capital reforms in individual member nations. Basically analyst without political ideals being a motivating factor is less EU and watch growth pick up and money flow in, doesn't fit the Narrative of the EU.

Countries do not go bankrupt. They default and the debt stays until it is written off. The problem is that the countries were allowed to join the Europe without real convergence to the Maastrict criteria. Greece should never have been allowed to enter and the Eurostat officials, heavily paid by EU tax payers, did not do their job when they were responsible to monitor the compliance.
Why is anyone surprised that Greeks did not pay their taxes. Anyone doing business in Greece knew it so how come the EU officials did not? The structural reforms agreed back in 2010 and 2012 were not implemented so the politicians in Greece before Syriza failed the Greek people. The IMF has been the biggest at fault as they consistently failed to understand that debt sustainability was not possible in a country were not a single measure was growth supportive. Their estimates of sustainable debt was a debt to GDP of 100-120%. The Europeans invested too much faith in the IMF officials who sit in their ivory tower thinking.  The EU has to get rid of the IMF and bring in people centric management of the Eurozone or it will fail. The promises of financial engineering by JCJ are a joke and will be yet another white elephant. The two countries doing well are those which borrow at historically low interest rates such as UK and USA. Why not the EU to borrow more and spend on growth inducing investment. Why wait for handouts from the EU?...The EU is a political project that all the political elites of Europe are committed to. The entire foundation being 'ever closer union' power and authority is centralised into the hands of the EU bureaucrats, once gone that power never goes back, ever.  If the Greeks left the Euro this would shatter the politically important myth that surrendering power to the EU was a one way street. The Greeks simply can not be allowed to leave.

Never mind the colossal danger that after exit and the initial hooha that things settle down and then improve for the Greeks, what kind of message would that send to the other PIGS?
The EU elites will pay the bill using their taxpayers money, they will just need to find clever ways of disguising what they are doing. Their EU dreams are at stake, their power, salary and massive pensions, the Greeks debt will be paid for them.

As the Greek banks are emptied of hard cash, as Greece’s creditors clench all that can be clenched in expectation of ruin, and as our economically illiterate masters in Brussels flail about in their desperate desire to prevent a public relations catastrophe (too late, by the way), where does this leave Britain?  The UK's  Prime Minister was amidst the deaf in Europe last week, pretending to negotiate with people who refuse to listen to him. A typical response was that of the nonentity Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, who hectored him about the “hate”, “downright lies” and “national resentment” that he claimed informed the British debate about the EU.

Herr Schulz grew up in West Germany, but seems fluent in the methods of the Stasi. I doubt his outburst has swayed many preparing to vote in the referendum, other than in a direction he would not want. Herr Schulz’s main beef is that we wish to restrict free movement of people: he hints at our hostility, if not racism, towards Bulgarians and Romanians.

As I noted here last week, the thing most British people seem to want from a “renegotiation” is the right to control our borders: and it will not be granted.