IMF report backs up Tsipras in Greek referendum

lagardevaroufakis

Did the International Monetary Fund’s latest proposal just basically admit Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras is right? Greece needs, under still-optimistic growth projections, at least € 50 billion through 2018 and debt restructuring. If Berlin admitted this even a week ago, we’d have avoided a lot of trauma. So while the Greek government is still amateur-hour, Tsipras, finance minister Yanis Varoufakis (picutred above with IMF managing director Christine Lagarde) and the rest are fundamentally correct — Greece can’t meet its debt burden.Greece Flag Icon

All of this should have been easily foreseeable five years ago. The answer is that this deal, like the eurozone’s creation in the 1990s, was more about politics than economics. I don’t know if that means ‘nai’ or ‘oxi’ or what ‘nai’ or ‘oxi’ generally even mean anymore.