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It will be a case of this referendum dominating events for the eight days at least, and undoubtedly longer, it appears that Alexis Tsipras is trying to give their creditors a Grecian Burn, how will they respond?
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- If it's a Yes to the bailout, the government will presumably have to resign, leaving a void when urgent action is essential
- If it's a No, then default surely follows as night follows day.
2. Good question, and remains to be seen apparently. Indeed, with the Eurozone Finance Ministers meeting tomorrow, no-one even knows what the deal on the table is, not even considering the other players in the game.
3. You would hope so. Moral hazard and pour encourager les autres and all that.
My (now delayed) piece for tomorrow had a comparison with the descent into WWI which is probably even more apt now. There are too many intransigents feeling that they have more to lose from backing down than from going to the brink, partly because they believe the other side will fold and partly because they believe there is a matter of credibility involved.
I suspect that he's reconciled to default, aware that the Greek electorate are unlikely to accept the austerity package on the table, but wants to be seen to be managing their decision to default rather than instigating it.
Glad it turned out well at least for BJO and family....
This smacks of a half-baked student politician stunt which has a very great capacity to go wrong and a small chance of someone else pulling the Greek government's irons out of the fire.
Loving v Virginia and related cases offer no support for the majority's position, since they concerned statutory restrictions adopted by a state restricting the ambit of marriage at common law and/or criminal penalties for entering into marriage. Obergefell v Hodges is an attempt to change the definition of marriage itself, and is in a different league. As the Chief Justice observes at pp. 20-21 of the slip opinion, the logic of the majority's argument is that there is a constitutional right to polygamy.
That leaves the only basis for the majority's decision as "substantive due process", a doctrine which is either wrong in principle or to be narrowly construed. The majority's approach is plainly inconsistent with the leading modern authority, Washington v Glucksberg
521 US 702. It requires that the fundamental liberty claimed to be protected by the due process clause to be "objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition". That obviously has no application in the present case.
Either he knows he has to do it, but cannot get it through his own party, or he can get it through but is putting it to the public anyway to provide political cover, as if he just didn't want to do it they could just refuse the deal safe in the knowledge that would be true to what their voters asked of them, it would seem.
Night all.
IMF = Xerxes
IMF Messenger: Choose your next words carefully, Mr. Tsipras. They may be your last as Greek PM.
Alexis Tsipras: [to himself: thinking] "Earth and water"?
[Tsipras unsheathes and points his sword at the IMF Messenger's throat]
IMF Messenger: Madman! You're a madman!
Alexis Tsipras: Earth and water? You'll find plenty of both down there.
[referring to the well]
IMF Messenger: No man, German or Greek, no man threatens a messenger!
Alexis Tsipras: You bring the ashes and ruins of conquered economies to Athens' city steps. You insult my wife. You threaten my people with slavery and death! Oh, I've chosen my words carefully, Bankster. Perhaps you should have done the same!
IMF Messenger: This is blasphemy! This is madness!
Alexis Tsipras: Madness...? This is SYRIZA!
[kicks the IMF Messenger down the well]
On topic, can Greece afford to have a vote? Does anyone have an idea will the public decide to swallow the medicine?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/32713768
Public vote NO - Tsipiras cr@ps himself.
Syriza is not some middle-of-the-road social democratic party. The closest Britain has is the Stop The War coalition. If Tsipras recommended a Yes, his party and his government would fall apart (or possibly it would simply eject him).
TO VICTORY!
Summer votin', happened so fast
Met Mr Putin, crazy for me
Met the troika, their terms no sirree
Summer polls, drifting away
But, oh, those summit nights
Well-a, well-a, well-a, uh!
Tell me more, tell me more
Did you get very far?
Tell me more, tell me more
Do we need the drachma?
Daily Telegraph
It's 2am in Greece, which isn't late enough for people to start scrambling for their nearest cash machines as doubt grows that banks will be able to open on Monday
They celebrate "No" day every October 28th with a public holiday to commemorate turning down Italy's ultimatum in 1940.
"It's been more than thirty years since the wolf and the winter cold. And now, as then, it is not fear that grips him, only restlessness. A heightened sense of things. The seaborn breeze, coolly, kissing the sweat at his chest and neck. Gulls cawing, complaining, even as they feast on the thousands of floating dead. The steady breathing of the 300 at his back, ready to die for him without a moment's pause. Everyone of them ready, to die."
* If Greece votes to reject the deal, then Tsipiras tells the Troika they want another deal and the deal is rejected
* If Greece votes to accept the deal, then Tsipiras resigns and the deal is rejected because there is no government to accept it.
Oh, for f***'s sake...
If stuck in a room stay there, lock it, chain it, all noises off, assuming its blokes with guns and grenades then mattress to door would be handy. In most cases, these guys neither have time nor inclination to spend time chopping down doors. Silence and any defence or disruption against entry may well save you because its too much effort for them. Listening and looking out of a window are the best indications of whether an attack is still live. You ignore all instruction that you can't verify by sight or background sound and stay silent until you are sure its done. In most cases an after-sweep by security forces post-attack will be pretty straightforward to identify.
If they are determined to come in, most hotel rooms have a narrow entry point, they don't open out instantly thus the last resort is pick a seriously heavy object or seriously sharp, stay out of sight by the nearest room or wall just out sight of the door, but preferably along that narrow channel. If they come through the door start f**king swinging when they are on top of you.
If you can't run away, practically the only decent defence left against someone with a gun, particularly a longarm, when you don't have any firearm yourself, is to be on top them to restrict their ability to bring a gun to bear. If they are in a hotel room with you, you are next to certain to die if you do not attack.
The Eurogroup ministers will meet at 2 p.m. (8:00 a.m. EDT) on Saturday and Greece will be asked whether it accepts a revised offer from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a euro zone official said.
If Greece refuses, the ministers will move on to discussing a "Plan B" on preparing to limit the damage from a Greek default to Greek banks and other euro zone countries and markets, the official said.
Two senior EU officials involved in the discussions put the chances of an agreement at just over 50 percent.
(I tried writing a post 3 times but worried it would sound too glib so ended up deleting it each time.)
RIP for all the victims - in Tunisia, in Kuwait and in France - and condolences to their family and friends.
He can't get it through parliament without losing half his party and relying on the opposition to help him win, which would kill him politically. He knows more than half the country wants to stay in the Euro no matter the cost, so he is doing the most logical, and politically savvy, thing.
The referendum will say yes to taking the money. Tsipras will then be able to do what he knows he must without paying the consequences of making the decision himself.
The 40-year-old prime minister said he would respect the outcome of the vote. But he argued the lenders demands "clearly violate European social rules and fundamental rights", would asphyxiate Greece's flailing economy and aimed at the "humiliation of the entire Greek people".
Government ministers emerging from the cabinet meeting said they were confident Greeks would vote no and REJECT the bailout demands, leaving open the question as to whether the country had other options beside leaving the euro in such an event.
The referendum call also throws the country's tottering banking system into focus, though a deputy minister said there were no plans to impose capital controls and banks would open as normal on Monday.
"The risk of Grexit has increased considerably, from previously 20 percent to at least 50 percent," Wolfgango Piccoli of Teneo Intelligence said in a research note. "Avoiding capital controls next week will be very difficult, if not impossible."
Cue for EU tanks to roll over borders of Greece before weekend. Whole thing looks like politician trying to cover his backside.
Everything Tsipras said yesterday indicates that he does believe he has a choice other than to take the money (and more to the point, accept the conditions that come with it): he believes that a renewed mandate will force the creditors to revise their terms. As MBE points out below, this belief is almost certainly mistaken but just because his logic is flawed (from that point of view) doesn't mean that he's not thinking it.
Robert Peston wrote a piece yesterday that concluded "So just maybe Greek bankers are right when they tell me that agreement will imminently be reached between Greece and its creditors - because the alternative is nightmarishly unthinkable." I disagree with both Peston and the Greek bankers (as I wrote last week). I think this one will go up to and beyond the brink. The reason is that Syriza believe that making the outcome of the process "nightmarishly unthinkable" will force the IMF and EU to change the process. I think they're deeply deluded. But then their starting position has been deeply deluded from the start.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2012/05/19/will-greece-make-a-drachma-out-of-a-crisis/
According to Jonathan, its democratic if you win with 35.2% of the vote but unfair and undemocratic to get a majority with 37%
You therefore need to realise that in the world of the left Tory win=non democratic.... Labour win = democracy at work. ... will of the people etc etc
Smart move by Tsipras. The Greeks want to have their cake and eat it. So he's letting them vote instead of deciding himself and pissing off loads of them whatever he does.
I guess they'll vote to stay in. And delay the inevitable a little longer.
But if they do, the problem won't go away, it'll just be kicked down the road.
1/3 NO to deal
2/1 YES to deal
He's is going to need popular support regardless of X, Y or Z.
BJO will experience pure joy arriving in Doncaster.
There is a reasonable chance that the referendum doesn't take place at all, whether because some deal is done today, because one side caves in during the next week, or because the can is kicked down the road and halting the referendum is part of that deal. It's not probable but it's far from out of the question.
It's also possible that by next weekend there'll be more than one deal on the table, or possibly that there'll be no deal on the table. We have no idea exactly which deal the Greeks are being asked to vote on given that talks are still ongoing. (Ref the 'no available deal' option, the creditors could easily withdraw their current offer if Greece is already in arrears / default).
I would say that No is value were it not for the lack of wording in the question. At the moment, the assumption has to be that the government will campaign for No but there is the possibility of a last-minute volte face, if better terms can be extracted. That would lead to all sorts of repercussions in Greek internal politics which is one reason why I don't think it'll happen but if it did, Yes would suddenly look far more appealing. As usual, Shadsy has priced cannily.
Y = hole he has dug in his corner up to his neck to tunnel out of the corner he was painted into.
Z = Grexit or new govt, which may be Tsipras in a bowler hat.
Meanwhile he's still demanding as far as I can see that people working to 65 or 70 in other countries pay for his pensioners to retire in the 50s.
I wonder why that should be accepted on top of well over 6 months spent insulting the people who he needs to build him an escape bridge?
I'd say that Tsipras forgot that the other 25 or so democracies have an equal right to an opinion.
Referendum? No idea at all.
So in reality, there's no choice on the table for the Greek electorate, which is surely the antithesis of democracy.