Greece. Breaking up is hard to do.

Krugman

The euro was a mistake, and austerity is a stupid and cruel economic horror.

It has been obvious for some time that the creation of the euro was a terrible mistake. 

Europe never had the preconditions for a successful single currency — above all, the kind of fiscal and banking union that, for example, ensures that when a housing bubble in Florida bursts, Washington automatically protects seniors against any threat to their medical care or their bank deposits.

. . . . 

[N]ext week the country will hold a referendum on whether to accept the demands of the “troika” — the institutions representing creditor interests — for yet more austerity.


Greece should vote “no,” and the Greek government should be ready, if necessary, to leave the euro.

. . . . 

But they [the Greeks] shouldn’t [vote "yes"], for three reasons. First, we now know that ever-harsher austerity is a dead end: after five years Greece is in worse shape than ever. Second, much and perhaps most of the feared chaos from Grexit has already happened. With banks closed and capital controls imposed, there’s not that much more damage to be done.

Finally, acceding to the troika’s ultimatum would represent the final abandonment of any pretense of Greek independence. Don’t be taken in by claims that troika officials are just technocrats explaining to the ignorant Greeks what must be done. These supposed technocrats are in fact fantasists who have disregarded everything we know about macroeconomics, and have been wrong every step of the way. This isn’t about analysis, it’s about power — the power of the creditors to pull the plug on the Greek economy, which persists as long as euro exit is considered unthinkable.


So it’s time to put an end to this unthinkability. Otherwise Greece will face endless austerity, and a depression with no hint of an end.

Not hearing much from anyone else on the American left about this.

A Guardian editorial

The Guardian, though leftist, is indissolubly committed to Europe and the euro.

They see all the cruelty and stupidity and failure in austerity that Krugman sees, but still can't bite the bullet.

Not for the first time, they blame Syriza both for it's apparent willingness to torpedo both and for the failure of the German bankers, the IMF, and other major creditors to "even meet them [the Greeks] one quarter of the way," which they have not been willing to do, as the Greeks have pointed out.