From here:
“Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, struggled to reach compromises on economic overhauls that were demanded by the creditors but that his left-wing government may find difficult to sell at home — just a week after Greek voters overwhelmingly rejected softer terms in a referendum.” (emphasis added)
In other words, he rallied his people only to mislead them. Unbelievable.
The whole thing reminded me of a shitty plot from a bad sitcom like Three’s Company. Some guy is sitting in a bar acting like a big man telling everybody, they don’t have to put up with it, that he has pull and can “talk to some people” and get it all taken care. Then the next scene he is on his knees whining and crying to the people in power that he’ll look bad in front of the guys if they don’t do something for him, with his only argument being “please please please pleeeeeeeeeeas!”
Ultimately we have the irresistible force of EU economic logic crashing against the immovable object of Greek public opinion.
Anyone who chooses to be the Greek leader chooses to insert himself between those forces.
In reality, one of the forces will eventually prove less than the other. We have yet to see which it will be. But Tsipras is certainly learning about getting squeezed.
I cannot understand the absolute arrogance of the guy.
Your country is in shambles, your pensioners (not all of whom retired after 57) are barely scraping by, taxes are higher than ever (but, since only fools pay taxes in Greece, not such a problem).
You have no idea how economies do and do not work, but you promise you can “make” the people who have “loaned” you 230 billion euros come up with another loan while eliminating the tax, restoring the pensions, and giving everybody a unicorn.
You get elected.
After that, the rest of the story unfolded pretty much as expected.
What was really surprising was the extent of the arrogance - the Finance Minister actually delivered a two hour speech on the evils of austerity.
Great negotiating strategy.
“Dumb Criminal” stories will never top this performance.
I don’t think that’s a fair assessment.
My guess is that he genuinely believed what he said. He was playing a game of chicken with the other European powers, and he thought the others would never let Greece leave the Euro but were holding out because they thought Greece would back down. Once they saw that Greece would never back down they would back down themselves, and the way to show that Greece would never back down was to show via referendum that the people were opposed to the deal.
Unfortunately for him, the central premise was incorrect, and some of the other powers were in fact prepared to let Greece leave, so his gambit failed completely. It was a very major miscalculation. But that’s not the same thing as a demogogue.
Demagogue is a term I haven’t heard for a long time. Rechecking the definition “a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument” would seem to apply to the vast majority of recent politicians.
But I see Tsipras as incompetent rather than a demagogue.
And since the etymology is Greek, it’s doubly applicable. They can use a word that originates within their own language to describe him perfectly.
They’re not mutually exclusive. Indeed, in my observations, demagoguery is driven by functional incompetence: the “baffle with bullshit” tack, rather than “dazzle with brilliance.”
Certainly, the fact that the Greek electorate hasn’t caught on to his transparent demagoguery tells me he’s a quite competent demagogue.
They may be able to pull themselves out of the hole with a new generation of gladiator and Greek God movies.
I found this thread because I was puzzled as to why Tsipras seemed to accept the same terms that the Greek people had *just *rejected overwhelmingly via referendum. This makes sense as an explanation. And I suppose it would have worked okay for him had the referendum gone the other way, as he could then take the deal offered without taking the blame. So the only scenario that would really bite him in the ass is what actually transpired.
It’s strange though that outside observers seemed to expect the referendum to go the other way, to “Yes”, even though the government Greeks had fairly recently elected was campaigning for “No”.
Saw this article yesterday from Reuters: The man who cost Greece billions.
ISTM that his belief that he could force the EU to ease austerity without leaving the Euro was genuine, if naive.
That government had been elected based on a promise that Greece would stay in the Euro (despite reducing the austerity), and a “No” vote was thought by many to mean exiting. Tsipras himself asserted otherwise, and claimed he would get a better deal within 48 hours of the “No” vote. Many people thought (correctly) that this would not happen.
That’s a bit confusing. So the outside observers thought Greeks would perceive the meaning of a “No” vote differently from what the government was telling them it meant?
It wasn’t so much the meaning of the “meaning” of a no vote in the sense of interpreting what the vote itself meant (though there were claims that it was confusingly worded and structured), as much as an assessment of what would happen if they voted no. And what would happen was an assessment of what other countries would do in reaction, which was not something that the Greek government could control.
It’s true that Tsipras was initially elected based on a promise that he could renegotiate the terms without leaving the Euro so a lot of people must have believed it then. But a lot had happened since then, and it had become clear to many people that the Europeans were taking a pretty tough line, and the thinking was that people who were really worried about leaving the Euro would vote yes for that reason.
So in your analysis, outside observers gave Greek voters more credit for perspicacity than they deserved. But wasn’t that analysis doubly flawed in that it seemed to assume Tsipras actually would just go back to the drachma if he didn’t get the new deal he wanted? Maybe “No” voters were secretly the savviest of all, seeing this as a worthwhile bluff, ending up with the same “Yes” deal in the end anyway if the bluff was called!
In a sense. It’s not like outside observers were making their assessments of the likely outcome based on their assessment of Greek voters’ perspicacity. But the polls showed a neck-and-neck race and it seemed to be trending a bit in the direction of a “yes” vote. So the question then is just what possible rationale the Greek voters could have for voting this way, and that’s the answer.
The country went through a lot of pain in the interim, and more importantly, it’s apparently not the same deal but was toughened on them - see the article I linked earlier.
Ouch, I hadn’t realized it was an even tougher deal. Now I read the article you linked–very interesting. I’m a little surprised they didn’t just go back to the drachma. Can’t be worse than this severe austerity, not to mention the loss of face and credibility.
My reading ishows that Tsipras and his Syriza party had absolutely NO “Plan B” for the instance that the EU did not break down and bive Tsipras everything he wanted.
No plan to re-introduce the Drachma, no alternate funding (Russia didn’t want to play, and he had just screwed Chins big time).
As to the referendum:
Tsipras assured the Greeks that a “No” vote would somehow strengthen his hand - the Finance Minister actually told them that a “No” vote would (somehow) “compel” the lenders to offer a better deal. Incredible.
Meanwhile, form the various EU negotiators:
“No” means leaving the Euro
The idea that it would compel a better deal was called “a cruel hoax”
The ECB stated itt had built a firewall around Greece and could contain the market damage should Grexit occur.
The Germans let it be known that plans were in place for humanitarian help should Greece fall completely apart.
Against this backdrop, Tsipras still exhorted them to vote “No”.
One explanation: He didn’t think the Greeks would vote “No” and he would resign and let a grown-up go to Brussels while he retire after “fighting the good fight”. This hols that he never expected to need a Plan B.
In 50 years, the definitive history of this debacle will be known,
However it sorts out, Syriza/Tsipras will be a textbook case for Econ student and Poli Sci students for a generation or two.
He never went to China and Russia though. Or even made any realistic threat to do so. He had cards he could play and did not.
If he had gone to those two, then geopolitical considerations would have taken over, with Uncle Sam, whose own Nobel Prize winning economists telling him the Greece austerity was and is a lousy idea putting pressure on the creditors.
I think he has a plan B, or maybe ulterior motives. After all, he is no doubt collecting a nice salary and will receive a nice retirement pension when he departs.
Then it’s “adios, suckers”.
And he actually will receive it, unlike the other pensioners.
The problem with the “austerity measures” is, on one hand, that they’ve been shotgun ones: reduce expenses everywhere, in every budget line. Cut pensions (not for politicians), cut healthcare, cut education; maintenance of public works has been cut as much as new public construction, doesn’t it make more sense to keep your roads maintained and, if you do any new works, have them be new infrastructures, than to cut the same % from maintenance, new roads and new statues? IANAEconomist, so maybe I just don’t understand.
On the other, that those cuts lead to a reduction in received taxes, even when people do pay them. And, depending on how the cuts and restructuring are done, they push the economy under the table, which again reduces receivables. The idea that “we can spend as much as we want, we’ll just owe it forever” is bad, but same as there are multiple ways to refinance a mortgage and some of them get you worse in debt, there are multiple ways to lower expenditures and a shotgun approach isn’t the best.
As for Tsipras being a demagogue, no shit. That’s exactly what populist means.
He did go to Russia - did you miss the photo op with Putin?
He didn’t go to China - they bought a 30-year lease on a port and refurb’d it (new cranes, rail link, increased capacity 4x) which he re-nationalized as soon as he took office.