This has sent a chill among European nations as this is an indication that the country will opt out of the Euro System and print its own currency.

Whispers are now being heard in the corridors of power that the country has been preparing stealthily for a regional war. The logic is that the war has to be sufficiently devastating enough to embroil a super-power into the Mediterranean. The immediate targets would of course be Israel because of its readymade nuclear installations and Syria because it's a soft target. As this has to be an imperial war Greece will not discriminate between religions. Moreover, if it was religious based, the super power would wait & watch; as has been typical with the Democrats who are now in charge.

The thinking is that once this short and quick war is over and they are all finally defeated by the super power then, as history has shown with Germany, Japan and South Korea; Greece may also be bailed out from its present crisis. In fact there is already talk about how citizens of Greece may be the favored nationalities over Indians for green cards and employment; i.e., after this quick war.

But Tsipras is hesitating because of the strong dissent by a section in the opposition. Although a minority group, these parliamentarians have influential powers and they have pointed out that:" historically, whenever Greece has gone 'out to war', their generals could never be contained and inevitably Greece conquers. After all the Greek Army is built over a legacy that goes centuries before the time of Christ and no Greek soldier will settle for a phony war like the Iraqis or Pakistanis. In fact, their concern is that Israel may even welcome them as they would see it as a way to settle the score with the Islamic nations once and for all.

So Tsipras is now pondering over the question the Opposition is asking: 'What happens if we win this war?'

Broke to super power? There is no doubt of the military prowess of Greece, they are versatile tacticians that predate many current super powers but aren't they a bit rusty? And broke?

And Europe would like to keep them that way?

For the record, this topic was originally posted
in the Jokes Section - due to the fictional paras
added post Quote - but I think the mods are right.
the 'tragic' element is very real; the official figure
is 26% unemployment which could mean another 20% under-employed.

Man, what was I thinking.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/01/news/economy/greece-bailout-concessions/index.html/

Greek leader flip-flops on bailout - again

July 01 LONDON

The Greek tragedy risks turning into a farce.
Hours after telling Europe he could accept most of the conditions of a bailout he previously rejected, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras urged Greeks to vote against it.
Confused? You're not alone. Markets in Europe swung around Wednesday in response to the conflicting signals coming from Athens.

Tsipras said a referendum planned for July 5 would go ahead, and Greeks should vote "No" to strengthen his hand in future negotiations on a new rescue.
But European leaders have made it clear they believe a "No" vote would set Greece firmly on the path to leaving the eurozone.
The Greek crisis...in 2 minutes
The remarkable series of events bring Greece no closer to fixing a crisis that spells disaster for its economy and people.
Tsipras wrote to European leaders and the International Monetary Fund late Tuesday, accepting most of the conditions they had attached to releasing more cash.
"[Greece] is prepared to accept this staff level agreement subject to the following amendments, additions or clarifications," Tsipras wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by CNN.
The first change he listed -- and the most significant -- is for Greece to continue levying a lower rate of sales tax on its many islands. Creditors wanted the discount eliminated.
Otherwise, the changes mainly concern slight delays to pension reforms and tax increases that the creditors had demanded.
Puerto Rico avoids default (for now)
Eurozone finance ministers held a conference call Wednesday to discuss Tsipras' letter. They agreed there could be no further talks until the result of the referendum is known.
Greece is on its own financially for the first time in five years. That's because it is now cut off from European bailout funds and has defaulted to the IMF.
It is unable to borrow from world markets because they would charge a crippling 15% interest rate for a 10 year bond.
Even if Greeks vote "Yes", a new rescue agreement could take weeks to negotiate, and Greece may need a change of government first.
"How do you persuade [European] government[s] to vote for a third bailout when the Greek government has actively campaigned in a referendum against the terms of a second bailout?" said James Nixon, chief European economist at Oxford Economics.
Meanwhile, Greek banks remained shuttered, and the country's economy gets weaker by the day.
Complete Coverage: Greece in Crisis
-- Virginia Harrison contributed to this article.
By Ivana Kottasova and Mark Thompson July 01, 2015 13:33PM

CNNMoney Business and Finance News
CNNMoney

A little back story of The Greeks Tragedy. 8 days ago..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/23/europe-is-destroying-greeces-economy-for-no-reason-at-all/

The Washington Post

Europe is destroying Greece’s economy for no reason at all
By Matt O'Brien June 23

(Simon Dawson/Bloomberg News)
This story has been updated.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, and finally as trolling. That, at least, appears to be the case in Greece, where its lenders want it to cut its pensions rather than hike its business taxes, because they're afraid those increases would, as the Financial Times's Peter Spiegel reports, "crimp economic growth."

There is a certain irony to Europe starting to worry that austerity is hurting Greece's economy. For years, Europe's leaders have insisted Greece cut deficits in exchange for concessions. Greece's economy has already shrunk 25 percent, and it is having trouble honoring its obligations in part because it has had so much austerity.

Now, the latest Greek drama isn't over, but it is in its last act. A deal should—admittedly one of the more dangerous words in the English language—be imminent. The problem, as it has been for the past five years, is that Europe and Greece haven't been able to agree on what austerity the latter will do in return for money from the former. This time, Europe has wanted Greece to cut its pensions more than the 40 percent they already have, but Greece hasn't. And that was that. Both sides thought the other would cave the closer they got to the deadline, so there was a lot of talk about "red lines" and "final offers" but not much actual negotiation.

That's changed now. Why? Well, Greece has discovered it has much less leverage than it thought. Part of it is that panic about Greece has stayed in Greece because the European Central Bank has both begun to buy other countries' bonds and promised to buy as many as it takes to keep their borrowing costs down. And the rest is that Greece's banks aren't so much an Achilles heel as an Achilles whole. In other words, they're pretty easy to pressure. Greece's banks not only need emergency loans from the European Central Bank to stay afloat, but are also sitting on a pile of Greek government bonds and deferred tax assets that would presumably be worth a lot less if there isn't a deal and Athens defaults.

What you need to know about the Greek debt crisis
Greece may default on its debts if a deal for more funding in exchange for fiscal reforms is not made. Here's why that matters. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)
So all Europe has to do is say it isn't sure Greece's banks have enough cash to stay open, and people will pull their money out even faster than before. That's what happened when European officials apparently leaked that they weren't sure Greece's banks could make it past Monday, and followed it up by saying they might have to stop people from moving their money out of the country. That's like yelling run in a crowded bank. And it worked. Greek depositors pulled out three times as much as normal the past few days, and that's left their banks even more at the mercy of the ECB — which has forced the government to either leave the euro or accept Europe's terms.

Greece gave in. Well, mostly. It's proposing to cut its pensions about half as much as Europe wants — raising contributions and retirement ages, as well as cutting back on early retirement — and then raising taxes to make up for the rest. Specifically, it would levy a new tax on corporate profits and increase its value-added tax, basically a national sales tax, to 23 percent on all but a handful of items. In all, this would be a fiscal tightening of 1.5 percent of gross domestic product this year and 2.9 percent the next.


The only thing holding up a deal is that Europe thinks this is the wrong kind of austerity. Spending cuts don't seem to be as bad for the economy as tax hikes, so that's what Europe wants Greece to do. On the one hand, this is sound economic advice. But on the other, it might be impossibly hard for the Greeks to accept. In the eyes of the Greeks, it's as though Europe is telling them to kill their own economy -- and then disapproving of the way they'll do it.

A real question for many economists, however, is why Europe is forcing Greece to do any more austerity at all. It's already done so much that, before this latest showdown, it actually had a budget surplus before interest payments. And, in this view, that's all it should shoot for, really: the point at which it doesn't need any more bailouts from Europe. Anything more than that, though, could just inflict unnecessary harm to the economy. When interest rates are zero, like they are now, budget cuts of 3 percent of gross domestic product would, by Paul Krugman's calculation, make the economy shrink something like 7.5 percent. So even though you have less debt, your debt burden isn't much better since you have less money to pay it back.

In the end, there seems to be only one reason to make Greece do more austerity, and it's hard to see how it makes any sense. That's to try to make it pay back what it owes. Indeed, one European official said that the entire point of this was that they "want to get our money back some day." The problem, though, is it's inconceivable Greece will ever do that. Many feel its debt should have been written down in 2010, but it wasn't because it was "bailed out" to the extent that it was given money to then give to French and German banks. The longer Europe demands this new debt be paid back, the longer Greece's depression will go on. Now, it's true that Europe has lowered the interest rates and extended the maturities on Greece's debt so far out that, for now at least, it's like a lot of it doesn't exist. But eventually it will, and at that point they'll either need to extend some more or hope that Greece has returned to growth.

Until then, Greece will be stuck in its economic Groundhog Day. It keeps trying to resist budget cuts that keep it in a perpetual state of high unemployment, but then gives in at the last minute. On second thought, history is just repeating itself as tragedy over and over again.

Matt O'Brien is a reporter for Wonkblog covering economic affairs. He was previously a senior associate editor at The Atlantic.

washingtonpost.com
© 1996-2015 The Washington Post

I thinks it's sad for the Country that gave us so many great philosophers and great minds and of course the Olympics.

A country of mostly warm and friendly people too.

I wonder what way my own Country will vote in the European referendum, which we have been promised will be held sometime in 2017.

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33403665/

BBC News News

Greece debt crisis: Greek voters reject bailout offer
31 minutes ago

From the section Europe
Crowds in Syntagma Square, Athens, 5 July 2015

Crowds gathered to celebrate in Athens as results began to come through
With almost all the ballots counted, results from the Greek referendum show voters decisively rejecting the terms of an international bailout.
Figures published by the interior ministry showed nearly 62% of those whose ballots had been counted voting "No", against 38% voting "Yes".
Greece's governing Syriza party had campaigned for a "No", saying the bailout terms were humiliating.
Their opponents warned that this could see Greece ejected from the eurozone.
"Today we celebrate the victory of democracy, but tomorrow all together we continue and complete a national effort for exiting this crisis," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a televised address.

He said that voters had granted him "not a mandate against Europe, but a mandate to find a sustainable solution that will take us out of this vicious circle of austerity".

Some European officials had said that a "No" would be seen as an outright rejection of talks with creditors.
But Greek government officials have insisted that rejecting bailout terms would strengthen their hand, and that they could rapidly strike a deal for fresh funding in resumed negotiations.
Greek banks would reopen by Tuesday, they said.
Reacting to the result of Sunday's vote, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis called it "a big 'yes' to a democratic Europe".
Greece would enter into "positive" in negotiations with its creditors, he said.

Euclid Tsakalotos, Greece's deputy foreign minister, told Star TV that two developments would allow Greece to pursue "a solution that is financially viable".
"Firstly, the government now has a new popular mandate and the second is the latest [International Monetary Fund] report which says that the Greek debt is unsustainable."
Greece had been locked in negotiations with its creditors for months when the Greek government unexpectedly called a referendum on the terms it was being offered.
Banks have been shut and capital controls in place since last Monday, after the European Central Bank declined to give Greece more emergency funding.
Withdrawals at cash machines have been limited to €60 per day. Greece's latest bailout expired on Tuesday and Greece missed a €1.6bn (£1.1bn) payment to the IMF.

Analysis: Mark Lowen, BBC News, Athens

The partying by the "No" camp will go well into the night here and the government will be popping open the ouzo. Alexis Tsipras has called the eurozone's bluff - and it appears to have gone his way.
But the triumphalism won't last. There is still a sizeable chunk of the Greek nation deeply unhappy with what has happened. And the government will have to unite a divided country.
More than that, a deal with the eurozone has to be struck fast.
Greek banks are running critically low and will need another injection of emergency funds from the European Central Bank.
Given the bad blood of the past two weeks - Greece's Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, calling the eurozone's strategy "terrorism" - it will be hard to get back around the negotiating table. And with the banking crisis and tax revenues plummeting amidst the instability, Greece's economy has weakened again, making a deal even harder to reach.
The eurozone's tough rhetoric will continue. But Greece's government will have its answer prepared: we put your demands to a democratic test - and they were rejected.
Peston: Banks running out of cash

Mr Varoufakis is due to meet senior Greek bankers later on Sunday. State Minister Nikos Pappas, a close ally of Mr Tsipras, said it was "absolutely necessary" to restore liquidity to the banks now the referendum was over.
However, Germany's Deputy Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, said renewed negotiations with Greece were "difficult to imagine". Mr Tsipras and his government were taking the country down a path of "bitter abandonment and hopelessness", he told the Tagesspiegel daily.
Others sounded more conciliatory.
Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni tweeted: "Now it is right to start trying for an agreement again. But there is no escape from the Greek labyrinth with a Europe that's weak and isn't growing."
Belgium's finance minister said the door remained open to restart talks with Greece "literally, within hours".
Eurozone finance ministers could again discuss measures "that can put the Greek economy back on track and give the Greeks a perspective for the future," he told the VRT network.
Call for a summit
French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are scheduled to meet in Paris on Monday to discuss the situation, Mr Hollande's office said. They also called for a summit of eurozone leaders on Greece on Tuesday.
The European Commission - one of the "troika" of creditors along with the IMF and the European Central Bank - wanted Athens to raise taxes and slash welfare spending to meet its debt obligations.
Greece's Syriza-led government, which was elected in January on an anti-austerity platform, said it had been presented with an "ultimatum".
The Greek government's opponents and some Greek voters had complained that the question on the ballot paper was unclear. EU officials said it applied to the terms of an offer that was no longer on the table.
The projected turnout in Sunday's referendum was about 60%.
As the result became clear, former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who had campaigned for a "Yes" vote in the referendum, resigned as leader of the centre-right New Democracy party.