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Isherwood  ·  3427 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Merkel 'gambling away' Germany's reputation over Greece, says Habermas

That's a hell of a question. In the long term a win for Germany means the continuation of harsh austerity measures, high taxes, long term repayment, restructuring, of Greece. This ensures Germany gets all of their money back .

A win for Greece is a little more complicated. The current conversation is whether Greece will accept or reject the austerity package from the eurozone. That's what that big Greek public vote was a week ago, vote yes and the measures are adopted, no they're rejected. But more so, the vote is really as to whether greece stays in the eurozone or not.

If they reject the austerity measures then they are kind of off the hook in terms of debt (in a weird theoretical way that will play itself out practically at a later date) but they are also out of the eurozone. Greece, I think, is the only country in the euro zone that's not connect to the others by land and is in a pretty rough neighborhood. Without the protection of the EU, the reality of their rough neighbors could become quickly apparent.

If they accept the austerity measures they are pretty much agreeing to a very well structured great depression. The measures attempt to spread out the pain, but there's a lot of pain to spread and the greek people will likely feel that pain for generations.

In this way there is not really a way for Greece to win, just two versions of losing.