Frank Kogan

there are people in every country who can recognise themselves in the Greek pensioners

Hmmm. My fear is that the people in other countries who should identify with Greek pensioners, or with Greek school teachers whose savings and employment are at risk or gone, don't get it at all, that, e.g., German and French school teachers and pensioners have no idea that it was potentially their own savings and jobs that were rescued in the first two "Greek bailouts"* but do believe that bits of their own money are being taken away to pay for the profligate Greeks.

And my other fear is that the "people in other countries" (not to mention in Greece itself) most inspired by the "No" vote aren't those who identify with the pensioners but those who think the fundamental problem is immigrants. Not that anti-immigrant populists and nationalists can't also oppose austerity. Fascist parties have historically had socialist wings (suppressed once the Fascists took power, I believe, though I don't really know my history here, esp. of Mussolini and Peron). But the European leadership has recently been as irresponsible regarding immigration as it has been regarding Greece and debts, and of course it's Italy and Greece where most of the immigrants are first landing.

Btw, if Angela Merkel has a pitch to get German voters and politicians to support debt relief and aid, it may be by inserting the adjective "humanitarian."

Oh, and lj is out right now, so I might as well keep typing. Krugman just posted commentary on Oliver Blanchard's defense of the IMF, the key phrase maybe being "given the political realities."

But anyway, Krugman is getting ever more adamant that absent substantial debt relief Greece's only way forward is via Grexit. Presumably he has some idea why others think Grexit would be crushingly bad for Greece. (I gather Yves Smith** is in this camp, and you seem to be too.) I don't think he's ever answered them directly, though. He thinks the current course guarantees a never-ending or at least long-term continuation and even worsening of the ongoing disaster.

*At least that's Steve Randy Waldman's take, which I've decided so far to believe.

**I haven't yet made the time to catch up on her take.