I just can’t grasp the thought process behind everyday Greek peoples’ actions here. It sounds as if they believe that a no vote means they keep their pensions and early retirement. It means anything but. The popular sentiment is opposite reality. It appears to me that they’re inadvertently doing the fiscally responsible thing under the mistaken belief that things will continue as they are, just with no mean old EU to boss them around? I can’t wrap my mind around it. Delusion. I feel for the everyday people caught up in this but it just makes no sense. I don’t think they’ll be allowed to starve but they’re in for a very rough time of it for years, no matter how things shake out.
They will get the amounts of their junior drachmas, but those amounts won’t buy anything. They *will* starve.
They should have never been in admitted to the EMU in the first place, having failed the criteria of the Maastricht Treaty from the jump and never coming into compliance.
The reality here is the populace sees this as a vote for freedom and on the surface is actually is, but underneath is where the issue lies because Sryiza cannot deliver all that they promised without the German money men.
This economy actually benefited from German economic strength, not on any of it own, since the inclusion. Now they will work to float their own currency and issue bonds under their own central bank flag (BTW they can't call the new currency the Drachma, that is against the EMU rules) which will cost them so much in the short run that they won't have the reserves to make any interest payments.
The concept of the EU/EC and further the EMU was flawed from its inception. The Germans and to some degree the French have benefited the most because if they had the D-Mark and Franc cross currency rates would be astronomically high against both countries that EU trade would favor the weaker countries.
The unnatural blend of democracy and communism at work here. The latter will prevail and the Greeks will pay a heavy price unless Berlin decides this vote will cost them more if they accept it then it would to reject it and cut a deal with Athens.