Austerity (i.e. just another name for living within your means) is going to hit the Greeks whatever. Its unavoidable – and the notion that they’ll be better off with austerity on their own terms is just sentimental nonsense – to the people it will feel the same, and ultimately the same difficult decisions will have to be made. If they stay with Europe they will have to introduce more austerity, but if they default and leave austerity will hit them as they will have very limited ability to avoid it as their channels of outward credit is cut off, as who on earth will lend a penny to the Greeks after they have demonstrated so brazenly that they have no intention of paying back what they borrow.
They decided to borrow the cash, it wasn’t forced on them, and once they borrowed it instead of investing it wisely they pissed it up the wall. If any person or institution is going to lend money to someone they are perfectly entitled to expect it will be paid back. If they don’t get those assurances then they won’t lend.
Of course i’m sure Putin will happily bale them out – in exchange of their freedom and Greece becoming the latest addition to his new USSR. I can’t imagine that’s what the people of Greece would really want.
It’s a desperate situation for the Greek people. This referendum is a nonsense and a way for their current government to shift the blame of failure on to the people, and I suspect, like the British people, there is not the general depth of understanding to properly consider the options being put to them, and the government is distilling a very complex choice into a very simple ‘us against them’ argument and forcing the decision on them in a matter of a few days. Appalling politics.