Greece headed toward default after its deadline extension request is denied.

[Dawyn]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/27/us-eurozone-greece-idUSKBN0P40EO20150627

"Greece's European partners shut the door on extending a credit lifeline to Athens, leaving it facing a default that could push it out of the euro after the leftist government rejected tough lender demands and put their bailout deal to a referendum.

Finance ministers of the other 18 countries sharing the euro met for the first time without Greece and flatly rejected its pleas to extend an expiring bailout until after the referendum on July 5 and setting the stage for Athens to default on a crucial IMF payment on Tuesday.

The swift rejection was a startling demonstration of the degree to which Tsipras had alienated the rest of the currency bloc with a final-hour announcement that upended five months of intense talks.

The Eurogroup of finance ministers shut Greece's Yanis Varoufakis from a meeting in Brussels and issued a statement without him, accusing Athens of breaking off negotiations unilaterally.

"The current financial assistance arrangement with Greece will expire on June 30, 2015, as well as all agreements related to the current Greek program," it said, making clear its refusal of a grace period to hold the vote."

 

[BLADE]

Ah propaganda.

- Mention of voters losing patience --though of course there have been no votes, etc. on what tack to take with Greece.

- No mention of Syriza --a pseudo-leftist group-- more or less knuckling under to cuts which would have taken Greek pensions to fifty percent of their previous value and left millions of Greeks in abject poverty.

- No mention of the fact that the majority of Greek debt are consolidated securities, etc. belonging to German, French, Dutch, Finnis, British, inter alia bankers.

There are no real heroes here: Syriza is "Marxism" for middle-class wankers and the Troika/Institutions/Whatever you want to call them now are cartoonishly evil. One does feel bad for the Greek people though. Stirrings of a massive humanitarian crisis (with military dictatorship, etc.) on the horizon.

 

[Nor'baal]

I couldn't agree more here.

A military dictatorship is on the books for Greece I think, probably (and it pains me to say it) one supported by the EU/UK/USA (or all of them). The humanitarian cost of this economic collapse is being overlooked massively.

Of course, if the Greek people would agree to actually pay taxes that would be nice. However, with the EU in crisis, I can see a Dictatorship being forced onto Greece as a means of stabilizing the nation and preventing a ripple effect across the continent.

 

[BLADE]

The Greek Parliament has rubber-stamped the virtual coup (sell-off of Greek Assets at vastly reduced value, retirement age being upped again, social welfare cuts --mutatis mutandis the US system for example-- of roughly twenty-five percent, cut -off of aid to the most elderly pensioners, the rejection of continued heat and fuel aid to the indigent, and oh yes, Troika approval required on any legislation from the Greek Parliament considered "relevant" to the crisis.) Reports of riot police deployed and brutalizing (concussions, broken bones, etc.) protesters outside the Hellenic Parliament

For extra points, a large contingent of said protesters were SYRIZA youth.

A sad day indeed when the only people who can claim principle are Stalinists (the KKE or Greek Communist Party) and Neo-Nazis (Golden Dawn.)