The Guardian view on Greece’s debt crisis: the ultimatum game | Editorial

For Athens, the question of default poses a real dilemma. For its creditors, a Greek exit is plainly the worst course. It would mean defending for the rest of time a currency union that had started to crumble

Another crisis of solvency, and Greece is - once again - described as confronting a fork in the road. Athens must finally choose, runs the argument of its creditors, whether it is ready to face up to its responsibilities, or whether instead it prefers to wish away the stack of red final-reminder bills piling up from the IMF, demanding a1.5bn this month. If Greece plumps for denial, however, it should not assume that it can rely on the flow of finance from the north, which is all that is keeping Greek cash dispensers going. Instead, Greeks will have to prepare to slip out of a euro they overwhelmingly wish to keep.

There is something in the creditors' account of events, and yet much is omitted. It neglects to mention how austerity has steadily smothered day-to-day life. Greece has not merely suffered a recession but a full-blown Grapes of Wrath-style depression, with social and political convulsions to match. The unemployment rate has been 25%-plus for years, with a similar proportion knocked off national income. The "medicine" swallowed so far has proved to be poison.

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