THE MAKINGS OF A TRAGEDY?

Or a farce?  As expected, the Greek Parliament did what they were supposed to do last night while the rioting continued.  This morning, their Euro buddies in Brussels managed to get into a fight among themselves and finding no resolution turned to the Greeks and said thanks very much indeed for getting a couple people killed in doing what we wanted you to do but it's not enough so you can't have your money by Friday or at least we don't think you can but we may meet again on Wednesday what for we are not sure and you may have an answer by then good-bye.  To say the Greeks have their knickers in a twist would not fully or adequately describe the situation.

What happened was a failure to communicate at the highest level.  In one corner we have the bureaucrats and the politicians led by Angie who desperately want to put this behind them so that they can get on with the really important business of their reelection.  In the other corner is the Troika led by Christy-baby who described it's situation in her beautifully accented and perfect English as,  "wanting a permanent fix, not a short-term one."

It seems that everyone had overlooked the requirement that it could be demonstrated that Greece's debt to GDP would be no more than 120% in two years except for the Troika and the only way for that to happen would be for a goodly portion of the debt to disappear between now and then.  Problem is the only holders of Greek Debt at this stage is the public sector and that line in the sand was drawn a long time ago with the pols promising the voters no losses would be accepted.  On top of all of this is a loan repayment of around 3 billion Euros due Friday for which the Greeks are a bit short of the ready--or so they say--by about 3 billion Euros.  The Greeks are quite prepared to refinance the maturity through the sale of T-Bills but they seem to be a bit short there as well...of buyers.  After all that has transpired, after all of the heartbreak and deaths, these clowns are prepared to play silly bugger with a situation that everyone knows is insoluble in the end; prepared to play chicken with a Greek default; prepared to practically invite the Greeks to bail out of the EU and explain to the entire world the IMF's complaint as to why there is too much Greek Euros in off-shore accounts.  Of course there is you idiots; IF THE WORST HAPPENS NOBODY WANTS DRACHMAS...and guess in the end who is making that happen. Tragedy.  For Greece perhaps but one they caused.  Farce?  I like that better; tragedies involve the fall of the mighty as a result of a character flaw or the role of fate.  Try as I may I don't see any mighties around this one.  I guess we just wait for the reviews.