I am really and truly trying not to laugh at this. No, seriously. I’m totally trying to cut out the schadenfreude this week.  But Greece refuses to make it easy for me:

A week ago, Greeks partied in the streets after voting to resoundingly reject terms of a new European bailout. On Sunday, those same streets were filled with a dazed and confused populace struggling to understand how they were now faced with swallowing a deal even tougher than the one they had just snubbed.

The answer is, of course, that the European Union has almost certainly made it privately clear to the Greek government that the former is more than ready to cut the latter loose. That’s the problem with running a bluff; somebody eventually calls you on it, if for no other reason than the principle of the thing. Apparently Alexis Tsipras wasn’t really ready to nuke his country’s economy just quite yet.

Anyway, there is honestly still no excuse for all the shocked looks on Greek faces today, if for no other reason than it’s frankly silly to trust a Communist (excuse me: ‘socialist’) on anything. The technically-ruling party (for right now, anyway) of Syriza has a lot to answer for right now, and not least in the field of ‘explaining to the voters what it’s been doing lately.’  I look forward to their explanations along those lines.

…In a completely not-grooving-on-the-misfortunes-of-some-rather-obnoxious-politicians sort of way, of course.

Moe Lane (crosspost)