Reducing wages by the amount seen as necessary in the Greek case has almost always been a self defeating proposition due to the simple fact that it is highly deflationary and, thus, as wages fall, revenues fall both for businesses and the government and, with reduced revenues, the debt becomes even harder to pay back, which causes and iteration of the process and we end up in a debt-deflation death cycle as first clearly described by Irving Fisher.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."