Greek Referendum on IMF/Troika deal

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Yes, the fact that the Greek military have been kept feathered throughout this whole crisis has been extremely confusing. I mean, I basically understand the rationale for VAT rates being lower on islands - everything is naturally more expensive because of the need to import + island tourism is pretty much the only thing going for the country. But over 2% of GDP on military is very much a nationalistic luxury.

I wonder if Syriza will split following this referenda?

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Imagine if every time the an American state ended up in economic trouble, all 50 governors had to get together and hash out a solution. This is a farce.

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Imagine if every time the an American state ended up in economic trouble, all 50 governors had to get together and hash out a solution. This is a farce.

Europe is not a country, you see.

Perhaps not, but if europeans are so desperate to maintain "national sovereignty" or whatver, they should have thought about that before making a currency Union/quasi-state.

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Jaichind I hope you haven't banked your investment portfolio on a YES vote

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The map is surprisingly uniform.

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The thing is, every government is playing an entirely "rational" game, in terms of politicking.

The Germans (and the Dutch, Finnish) politicians dont want to risk their votes; and likewise the Greeks don't want to risk votes either. This is why there needs to be a more powerful supranational legislature controlling the EU, because presently there is no accountability for the Eurozone; and these crises will occur again and again. Failing that, the Eurozone should be abolished; but I fear there is too much pride invested in the currency for that to be an outcome.

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Fun fact for people arguing Greece should cut it's military spending because 2% of GDP is too high: that 2% is actually the minimum acceptable spending level per the terms of their NATO membership treaty

Yeah, but aside from the U.S. and UK, Greece is like the only country that takes that damn mandatory spending seriously. Seems a bit weird to tie itself in knots over the magic 2% when completely stable countries like Canada flaunt it as a matter of course.

The disturbing future that Tsipras doesn't want for Greece is to look like Serbia: insular, nationalistic and angry.

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He resigned because game theory people.

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Look how far "No" voters have swung from Potami! Obviously a bit of polarisation there.

Also curious: no stastistical difference between public employees, private employees and the unemployed.

(I wonder if fishermen have ulterior motives for leaving the EU)

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I assumed that the German Empire and its paraphernalia would be verboten in the mindset of Germans.

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Greece really needs some wily Dom Mintoff figure to dick around with all world powers for its own end.

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Brits of course are not in the Euro, and so can freely look smugly at the whole lot with a sense of ironic disdain towards Eurocracy.

I'd like to see figures from the other so-called PIIGS (and Cyprus).

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Oh and nobody mentioned this earlier, but somebody posted on the IRC, the Google insights for which countries took most interest in the referendum (including Greece).

Number one was Liechtenstein (followed by Monaco, Luxembourg etc.)

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There is a lot of resentment amongst many smaller countries in to East who had to rapidly liberalise their countries that Greece never had to do anything. Notably Slovakia's foreign minister is looking increasingly likely to veto the next bailout package.

What a political farce. The Euro is such a schizophrenic and poorly implemented Moderate Hero policy that tries to sap to Eurofeds and local nationalists simultaneously, while being an unworkable mess.

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So was this tsipras's game plan? Play up to the left and stage a referendum to avoid PASOKifying himself; then propose a fairly austere deal that he knew would be vetoed by Merkel (and others, but of course it works better for PR proposes that the Germans are up held as the villain) no matter what it stipulated?

Probably quite a goood move politically, although obviously shaky economically.

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Has Landslide Lyndon posted in a while?

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BoJo is probably wondering why Greece didn't use the stimulus money to build tacky VIP tourist attractions.

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This will make a fascinating biopic in coming years.