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Fed up with suffering through ill-conceived austerity economics, Greece has overwhelmingly elected a leftist leader who has promised to end this particular brand of punitive, failed policy. His name is Alexis Tsipras; he's leader of the left-wing Syriza coalition, and, as Paul Krugman writes in Monday's column, he is already being warned by various fiscal scolds to behave “responsibly.”
"So how has that responsibility thing worked out so far?" Krugman asks.
Answer: By just about any measure, it's been a disaster and has resulted in a great deal of suffering. Per Krugman:
To
understand the political earthquake in Greece, it helps to look at
Greece’s May 2010 “standby arrangement” with the International Monetary
Fund, under which the so-called troika — the I.M.F., the European
Central Bank and the European Commission — extended loans to the country
in return for a combination of austerity and reform. It’s a remarkable
document, in the worst way. The troika, while pretending to be
hardheaded and realistic, was peddling an economic fantasy. And the
Greek people have been paying the price for those elite delusions.
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