Buffoon leaders... and how we milked the EU, by veteran Greek columnist and commentator

[strategery blunder]

75. That would be all well and good

If the troika hadn't rejected the very reforms related to tax enforcement that Greece needs to address such problem. They were too ideologically blinded by neoliberal ideology and/or corruption themselves and demanded that the budget be balanced on the backs of the poor, not on the backs of those who have been evading taxes to the tune of the Greek government only receiving 60 cents on the dollar of taxes owed to it.

That deserved a big, fat OXI.

Ultimately I see this as a situation in which both sides were right, but over completely different timeframes, and they were too rigid to engage in constructive negotiation before it came to this point.

Angela Merkel and the Eurocrats were right in that Greece needed to rein in its spending to get its debt under control--over a time span of a couple decades.

The Greeks were right in that forcing that kind of austerity on them in the SHORT TERM threw their economy into a deflationary depression from which there could be no escape other than either a debt write-off, a long-term grace period to allow them to get their house in order (i.e. substantial restructuring), or Grexit.

UNLESS the Greek economy is allowed to breathe in the short term, it will never survive in the long term, let alone grow to the point that the debt that has been accumulated can actually be paid.

Hell, extending new loans is a fool's errand. But there would be far less need for them if the debt was restructured as if it was a student loan--with a deferment of payments at the beginning to allow Greece some time to fix its economy.

I think by now the Greek voters have had enough of the corruption on all sides. Why do you think Syrzia won in the first place? Because the existing political order was so corrupt and had robbed the country blind and handed it to the troika.