Tsipras to Exit Stage Right?

Moe Lane explains the current situation between Greece and the EU:

I am really and truly trying not to laugh at this. No, seriously. I’m totally trying to cut out the schadenfreude this week. But Greece refuses to make it easy for me:

A week ago, Greeks partied in the streets after voting to resoundingly reject terms of a new European bailout. On Sunday, those same streets were filled with a dazed and confused populace struggling to understand how they were now faced with swallowing a deal even tougher than the one they had just snubbed.

The answer is, of course, that the European Union has almost certainly made it privately clear to the Greek government that the former is more than ready to cut the latter loose. That’s the problem with running a bluff; somebody eventually calls you on it, if for no other reason than the principle of the thing. Apparently Alexis Tsipras wasn’t really ready to nuke his country’s economy just quite yet.

There was crowing from the anti-austerity over the weekend that Merkel had somehow blinked by giving Greece an offer better than an ultimatum to pay up every last euro or else. But the fact is, Merkel/EU/ECB were going to have to accept something less than total surrender, because Athens can’t afford to pay the money back — they just don’t have the money. And won’t. Ever.

So the question wasn’t would Greece make 100% good. The question was what kind of economic and political reforms would Greece have to make in order to get down to an affordable payments schedule.

Now Tsipras must either nuke his country’s economy, or nuke his leftwing agenda.