Greek PM begs for support for EU austerity measures

Lucas Papademos, the Greek Prime Minister, has gone on TV today calling for calm as about 4,000 protesters protested outside the Greek parliament (they're allowed to do that in more enlightened countries) and begging MPs to vote in favour of the EU's crippling austerity measures designed to try and keep the €uro going for a bit longer while they await divine intervention.

Just smile and nod Lucas, it always works for me

Appearing next to the EU ring of stars logo probably wasn't the cleverest move when Greeks are rioting about the EU's austerity measures (even burning German flags to protest at the fourth reich's interference in Greek affairs) but then if he was a clever man, Papademos would have told the EU to bugger off by now and defaulted.  Iceland was in technical default a couple of years ago but are now predicting a 3% growth in the economy and a budget surplus next year.  Iceland let its banks fail, looked after its own citizens, stuck two fingers up to foreign investors and devalued its currency.  Greece isn't allowed to let its banks fail, it has to look after all EU citizens, it's not allowed to stick two fingers up to foreign investors and it can't devalue its currency.

Greece needs to find €14.5bn in 5 weeks time to make bond repayments and it doesn't have the money.  The only plan the Greek government has is to borrow the money from the EU and IMF but in return, the EU wants devastating cuts in Greek spending, EU control of the Greek budget and their sockpuppet heading the government.  Greece can't afford to pay back the loans it's already taken out, let alone billions more.

Back in November (before the EU effected a coup to remove Papandreou from office) we said that Greece needs to forget about the EU/IMF bailout plan, default on its debts, withdraw from the €uro and reintroduce the drachma at a cheap rate to stimulate the domestic market.  There is no conceivable way out of the current economic mire that Greece finds itself in whilst remaining a member of the EU and the €urozone.