... while praying for some form of divine intervention that might let them salvage their continued ability to breathe, personal fortune and political careers. In roughly that order.

Considering their alternatives, that's not actually a bad pick. For them.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

In fact (and this has been stated almost directly) they're hoping that if they are compliant enough, at some point the Protector Powers will come and help us poor sinful paupers. They're trying to keep propping up the dilemma "austerity or GRexit" and are investing a lot in the fact that the big oligarchs are backing them 100% (watching Greek TV, private or public, a foreigner would find it difficult to surmise that SYRIZA is the Official Opposition, or what they are for). The forces the government are representing, anyway, are not exactly distressed at the prospect of seeing Greece turn into a low labor-cost, low-tax haven with most of its public lands, enterprises and infrastructure sold for pennies...

The fact that the oligarchs are backing this destruction, might point to some sort of deal between banksters (who after being bailed out are given the remnants of the public banks which were made "unsustainable" on purpose by the terms of the PSI deal), public contractors and ship-owners (who are doing well enough to have recently bought a large part of the German container fleet) with the troika, or some other involved party...

Also they are hoping that the extreme xenophobic reflexes they are triggering with the help of the Mass Media (thus creating a climate that strengthens the Golden Dawn Neonazis) are diversion enough, for enough people, that they might survive this winter.

Finally,  do not underestimate the inferiority complex that Southern European elites (I'm seeing similar attitudes in Portugal and Spain - Italy is probably different) have in respect to their Nothern counterparts. Having said that, the indifferent contempt with which Samaras is treated is shocking. Samaras asked to be spared further cuts in police officer and military salaries - for obvious enough reasons. Even this was denied by the troika.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake