There is no comparison between the news we have been scantly getting from Iran and those we are getting from Greece.

Um, in Iran health care provision is not collapsing as we speak. Parents are not giving their children up to social services because they cannot pay the bills. People are not being taxed through the electricity bill in order to pay interest on money that never actually makes it to the country.

Did you see this?

Have you been keeping track of what Jean-Claude Juncker has been saying? Such as

"We are highly concerned by the high unemployment and increasing poverty, but we agreed Spain will stick to the 3 percent target in 2013, which is more important than the avenues chosen in 2012," Juncker explained.

also

I don't agree that Spain should go through excessive and stupid consolidation that puts it in a more difficult situation than it already is, but on the other hand Spain is the fourth- largest economy of the euro zone and as such it cannot take total leave from the promises it has made," Juncker said.

"There is poverty, there is unemployment, the policy is stupid, but damn us if we're going to deviate from the policy even if it's stupid."

Do you understand the EU, Luis?

Is it still the EU you knew and loved?

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

Luis de Sousa:

. The vast majority of Greeks want to remain in the Eurozone, let alone the EU.

If there are opinion pols on the eurozone in Greece, I would very much like to see them.

On the leaving the EU part, I don't see it. Sure, there is no legal basis to leave the EMU, but then again there is no legal basis for ECB to bleed the perifiery dry. In the short term, executive power rules.

Say that Greece or Portugal defaults, issue their own currency and does not leave the EU. Then the Commission could take Greece or Portugal to court, the country could be fined, loose EU-funds and eventually voting priviligies. Then again taking a country to court is a political decision, and if you are right that the rest of the eurozone promptly collapses when the first leaves, maybe the rest of the EU is not all that interested in trying to push the first country that left to re-join the collapsed EMU.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

Jake, your language is bordering the impolite, which is leaving me wondering what exactly you don't like about this post.

That you are scaremongering in the service of an austerity policy that is going to kill on the order of 60 thousand Greeks over the next decade or so.

If every state would leave the EU simply because they don't like where the Council is leading there would be no EU at all.

In the first place, EU membership has never been a question. The notion that it is impossible to leave the Euro without leaving the EU is pro-austerity propaganda. There is no mechanism for forcing a country to exit the European Union in response to their refusal to honour the Euro as the sole legal tender in their jurisdiction.

In the second place, no EU institution has any legal authority to impose line-item vetoes on the Greek budget. But the Troika is doing it anyway. In this context, your appeals to be good Europeans and follow the rules (as dictated by an insane central bank and a chancellor who is unfit to manage a kindergarden, let alone a mid-sized European country) is simply laughable.

And in the third place, to describe the situation as "simply not liking where the Council is leading" is such a mendacious lie that I wonder what the fuck you were thinking when you wrote it. To reiterate: The austerity policy being imposed on Greece will murder on the order of one per cent of the Greek population over the next decade.

This is not "simply not liking" a policy. It is self-defense against an enemy occupation.

There is no comparison between the news we have been scantly getting from Iran and those we are getting from Greece.

What news are you getting from Greece?

Do you understand the EU Jake?

Yes. Certainly better than you do.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.