Urging a "Yes" vote, European leaders and their supporters in private institutions claim more austerity would reinvigorate the Greek economy and permit Greeks to keep the euro as their currency, but such claims simply contradict the facts. Already, the Troika, led by Merkel and IMF Managing Director Christine Legarde, has imposed five years of budget cuts, higher taxes and labor market adjustments. The Greeks have endured a 25 percent contraction in GDP, 25 percent cut in private sector wages and 25 percent unemployment. Greece’s debt to GDP ratio has soared from 130 percent to 180 percent of GDP, and that is an impossible burden to repay. The only solution is for Greece to replace existing bonds with securities having longer maturities and paying lower interest rates, and with reduced face value — essentially, a haircut for creditors.
Peter Morici: The Greeks Should Vote 'No!'
Any scheme that can result in such a crisis – to say nothing of the stagnant growth, unemployment and poverty that have plagued much of the eurozone since the crash – is bound to be branded an unambiguous failure. What’s more, it is now acting as a repellent for the European idea itself: witness the rise of populist anti-EU parties in Spain, Italy and beyond.
This euro is destroying the European dream | Jonathan Freedland | Comment is free | The Guardian
As for the rich countries, the euro has been a marvel. Germany gets to trade in a currency that is sufficiently weak to make its exports internationally competitive, all the while selling its cars and washing machines into a captive market of near-neighbours who cannot devalue their own currencies against it. If Berlin had stuck with a too-strong Deutsche Mark, it would have seen its goods become prohibitively expensive.
This euro is destroying the European dream | Jonathan Freedland | Comment is free | The Guardian
Greece’s economy is on the brink of collapse after the capital controls imposed ahead of Sunday’s referendum left the country with food and drugs shortages, the tourist industry facing a wave of cancellations and the banks with barely enough money to survive the weekend.
Greek economy close to collapse as food and medicine run short | World news | The Guardian
“Imports, exports, factories, firms, transport, everything is frozen,” said Vasilis Korkidis, who heads the national Confederation of Hellenic Commerce. “The only sectors in demand are food and fuel.” Read more Korkidis said the economy had suffered losses worth €1.2bn in the past week and that the cost would have to be added to any fresh bailout deal. “Even in the best-case scenario, it is going to take months to recover from the shock of closed banks and capital controls,” Korkidis said. “Now that they are in place, capital controls may last for a year.”
Greek economy close to collapse as food and medicine run short | World news | The Guardian