Smart man. Maybe not popular, but smart

An infinite debt spiral can't exist in the real world.

It is a term of time...two sides waiting until 11:59. They both had some to gain and a lot to lose, regardless of which side one took, if any.

There's an "s" in it.

Plus you don't know what you're talking about.

with all of that pithy knowledge.

The relevance of your trivial finger-pointing is almost equaled by its significance...

That said, I too like to pretend people don't what they're talking about when they disagree with my position. If nothing else, it certainly allows us the self-validation we too often desire.

For a lot of people, it's much more emotionally satisfying to bully, inveigle, impugn, insult, and otherwise abuse your opponent to get to a compromise.

That, however, forces the opponent to dig in and say, "No." Meaning that the only recourse left is to protect your honor by utterly degrading and humiliating your opponent. And the more you do that, the more the other side digs in and adopts the same attitude.

For the last few years, Greece just said "yes" but largely did "no." While it said yes and appeared to do "yes" it did get debt concessions, it got loans, and restructuring and such were on the table.

In the last six months Greece has won a lot of supporters by being insulting, rude, and nationalistic. Concessions, restructuring, etc., were taken off the table, and the EU became more and more hard-line as Tsipras worked mightily hard to "get to no" or utterly degrade and humiliate his opponent. Whatever was said in private, in public Tsipras was doggedly fighting to get to no.

One big insight is that SYRIZA is an opposition party that has to rule. It's ruled by continuing to be an opposition party. That's fine from afar, but deadly close up.

The other big insight is that these negotiations needed a mediator. Mediators are trained to "get to yes" and the EU and Greece need to get to yes. Mediators don't have the same psychological reaction and moralistic self-identification with the goals, they don't raise hackles on either side, and they get past the "crush, kill, destroy" mentality that can build during confrontational sessions and which is nearly impossible for those directly involved in unmediated bilateral negotations to get past.

The same dynamic occurred from time to time in the US--whatever Obama said in private to the (R) in Congress by way of "concessions and negotations", in public he was doggedly trying to get to know by his rhetoric. It's why he's being completely reasonable in how the TPP and, indeed, any negotiations should be conducted, out of the public eye. Negotiations are like sausage making. Even if you like the sausage, you don't necessarily want to see the pig blood mixed with the cereal making the next batch of sausage as the previous batch is put on your plate, or the intestines being processed for the casing.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand who has the most to lose.

That would be a good way to keep Greece on the juice and in their pocket.

but, since I am a man of the 21st century who eschews capital punishment, I settle for sending him to a desolate island in the middle of the Atlantic where he spend the rest of his life alone.

We'll give him some cash and he can buy whatever he can find on the free market, if there's such a thing as a free market without a human society. It's a just place for those who think free markets are natural and human society isn't. He'll be all alone, without any of those troublesome human beings around, just an Übermenschen and his money.

If it seems too cruel to condemn Herr Schäubel to an uninhabited island in the middle of the Atlantic without comapnionship, then we'll let him take Chancellor Merkel with him.

Oh, well. Maybe he can grow gills. Or sit on Angela.

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[/center][font size="1"]From Wikipedia Commons.
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Hatred for Schäubel; hatred for Merkel. As if these personalities were the issue. As if putting some other person in the same job would solve the problem. That's an illusion. Anyone who replaced them would do the same thing. The problem isn't personalities, but the system of greed and corruption that they work for.

about that.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141141385

"There can be no haircut..."

The Germans equate the EU with Germany. He's saying no haircut because it will impinge on Germany. No concession at all from this POS.

I don't call Reuters Rotters for nothing.

Greece has already had two bailouts worth 240 billion euros from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund, but its economy has shrunk by a quarter, unemployment is more than 25 percent and one in two young people is out of work. --Rotters, from the OP (my emphasis)

If Rotters wasn't a craven tool of the 0.01%, this sentence would read as follows (and be truthful): Greece has already had two 'bailouts' worth 240 billion euros from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund, and its economy therefore has shrunk by a quarter, unemployment is more than 25 percent and one in two young people is out of work.

"Bailouts" needs to be in quotes for money with a ruined economy as the string attached it. And it is NO ACCIDENT that Greece became a basketcase economy. Rotters pretends that this is bewildering. They got all this money "but" failed anyway. Jeez. Talk about a 0.01%-er twist! It's like that shit Reagan and his "trickle-down." We, the uber rich, trickle down a few pennies to you, the peasants, and still you whine, and want food, and clothing, and shelter, and education for your children, and decent jobs! We are benevolent; you are welfare cheats!