This is no surrender: Paul Krugman on the Greek left’s surprising victory against austerity

[pampango]

One week after Greece’s leftist government reached a new debt deal with its creditors, Paul Krugman argues in his New York Times column today that left-wing criticism of the deal is misguided, obscuring larger victories secured by Greek negotiators.

What was at stake in the negotiations, the Nobel Prize-winning economist writes, was whether Greece would have to impose further austerity measures on its already beleaguered populace. The Syriza government avoided such a calamity:

Krugman concedes that the debt deal contains other provisions with which leftists quarrel. Greek negotiators agreed to proceed with privatization deals already underway and to preserve some “structural reform” of the labor market implemented by the leftist government’s predecessors. But Greece also redoubled its commitment to cracking down on tax evasion, particularly by the wealthy; you’d be hard-pressed to frame that as a defeat for the left.

All in all, Krugman concludes, the pushback against austerity is meeting with notable successes — “even if nobody believes it.”

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/27/this_is_no_surrender_paul_krugman_on_what_the_greek_lefts_surprising_victory_against_austerity/

[TheKentuckian]

1. Do the beleaguered Greeks act like they were going to accept any more austerity?

Calling that a victory probably doesn't swallow too easily to the people with the boot on their necks.

Push further after elections calling for relief and that pot is going to boil over which means not only do folks not get paid back at all but a lot are going to have even more losses as a consequence of their iron fisted squeezing.

They didn't grant a concession, they did the math.