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So to recap, Greece has put forward a plan of reforms, spending cuts and tax rises that is close to what was demanded by its creditors before Alexis Tsipras called last Sunday’s referendum.

The plan includes sweeping chnages to VAT to raise a full 1 percent of GDP, moving more items to the 23% top rate of tax, including restaurants - a key battleground before.

Greece has also dropped its opposition to abolishing the lower VAT rate on its islands, starting with the most popular tourist attractions, despite firm opposition from Tsipras’s coalition partner.

Athens also appears to have made significant concessions on pensions, agreeing to phase out solidarity payments for the poorest pensioners by December 2019, a year earlier than planned. It would also raise the retirement age to 67 by 2022.

And it has agreed to only raise corporation tax to 28%, as the IMF wanted, not 29% as previously targeted.

Greece is also proposing to cut military spending by €100m in 2015 and by €200m in 2016, and implement changes to reform and improve tax collection and fight tax evasion. It will also press on with privatisation of state assets including regional airports and ports; some government MPs had vowed to reverse this.

In return, Greece appears to be seeking a three-year loan deal worth €53.5bn.

Two obvious questions -- will this still be enough for creditors, or will they push for even tougher “conditionality” now we’re talking about a new bailout programme. And how will Alexis Tsipras persuade his party, including the hardline Radical Left, to support it?

So to recap, Greece has put forward a plan of reforms, spending cuts and tax rises that is close to what was demanded by its creditors before Alexis Tsipras called last Sunday’s referendum.


What a waste of a referendum... People will ask why. The answer will be brutal, depressing.

Good luck Greece. Next time pay your bill on time. Turn those old creepy olympic stadiums into a resort before they turn into dust. Do not believe someone who tries to sell you the moon again.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1110202.0

They've already erased 100+ billions

Here  (http://www.thepressproject.gr/article/79088/Sugkrinoume-ta-3-programmata-paragrafo---paragrafo)you can see the proposals being compared to previous ones before the referendum. I'd assume that this is the reason that not all of Government MPs supported the new proposals. 145 Government MPs voted for yes out of 162.

Edit: A summarization  (http://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/jul/10/greek-debt-crisis-whats-in-the-proposals-from-athens)by the Guardian.

So to recap, Greece has put forward a plan of reforms, spending cuts and tax rises that is close to what was demanded by its creditors before Alexis Tsipras called last Sunday’s referendum.


What a waste of a referendum... People will ask why. The answer will be brutal, depressing.

Good luck Greece. Next time pay your bill on time. Turn those old creepy olympic stadiums into a resort before they turn into dust. Do not believe someone who tries to sell you the moon again.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1110202.0

The ‘bad, cookie-wielding people from across the big pond’ simply used the situation skillfully to their advantage. Said another way: there is an old CIA/MI6 playbook: How to create color revolutions. It is the opinion of some very good analysts that this playbook hasn’t changed (it was only perfected) since the beginning of the 20th century. Why change what works wonders?

That’s how all these color revolutions we have observed, were created. Be it France to unseat De Gaulle, or Hungary in 1956, or Georgia, or Egypt, or Serbia, or Ukraine… It’s the same exact playbook. That’s why it was so easy to predict from the start that there would be cookies on Kiev maidan (or lavash, as in Armenia) and mysterious snipers, and innocent victims promoted all over Western MSM.

What this playbook targets is this: it capitalizes on the deep-seated resentments and anger of the volatile and immature part of the population. Extreme nationalism is part of the resentment and dissatisfaction due to the collapsing standard of living. This is why there was no nationalism in the USSR – the majority lived reasonably free (yes, free – in a sense of personal freedom to be yourself and live according to your tradition), was reasonably satisfied and well-occupied.

The movements to change things and the local power grabs began only after Gorbachev destroyed the structure that worked. Gorby’s intention may have been to reform and rebuild on the new level, however, in his naiveté he had no idea who and what he was dealing with internationally. You can’t try to negotiate in good faith, you can’t try to build cooperative relations with those countries that have one exclusive goal: to destroy your country. This is why most Russians consider Gorbachev a traitor and criminal. However, I think this is too simplified of a view. He genuinely thought he was building a new, cooperative world with the West – the world without confrontation. But along the way, he and his wife fell for the trappings of Western materialism, aka, very subtle bribes.