@Setanta,
Well soon after they kicked out the Colonels, Greece elected Papandreo pere, a UC Berkeley graduate who quickly instituted give away social welfare programs to his favored voters, thereby undermining what was left of any creative spirit among the ever neurotic Greeks, and putting them on the debt-ridden road they have pursued to its recent collapse.
It is hard to figure the political caloculation involved here by the current Greek government. It seems likely they are convinced (rightly or wrongly) that they can persuade the Greek voters to accept the offered package as at least better for themselves than default and a likely exit from the Euro Zone. It is certainly understandable that the government would fear a public backlash from the deal if there is no public "ownership" of the terms or the alrernatives. However, it also seems very likely that this all came as a surprise to the Germans & French. It appears they are worried more about the possible spread of the financial contaigon to Italy & Spain than about the Greeks, and that this action by the Greek government may upset the whole deal.
All this adds yet another strange twist to this affair. The EU recovery plan uses techniques to leverage the limited bailout funds they have made available to save their banks and limit the spread of the contaigon. However, it is based on an odd "voluntary" haircut for private bondholders, designed to avoid technical default and thereby enable them to allow their main national banks to cling to the fiction that their Greek bondholdinbgs retain face value, and "guarantees" to new lenders that may not work. The European bank capitalization program, done without any supporting action on the part of the European Central Bank (as was done here with the Fed.) perversely creates new incentives for ther European banks to curtail ordinary lending, just as Europe appears to be slipping again into recession.
Equally odd is the anti business, redistributionist rhetoric of the U.S. administration and the occupy movement in a world that continues in the grip of a widespredad financial crisis chiefly created by the foolhardy spending and debt accumulation of governments - in both America and Europe (and possibly China). It appears they arer bashing the only force that can save them.
