Monday, August 31, 2015

German MPs voted to back a third bail-out for Greece on Wednesday as Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte faced the threat of a no confidence vote over his decision to support the €86bn rescue plan. After a three-hour debate, the Bundestag approved a new rescue package for Greece with a majority of 454 votes to 13. Eighteen MPs abstained.  Within Angela Merkel's ruling Christian CDU-CSU coalition, 228 MPs voted in favour of the deal, with 63 voting against and three abstentions. In an earlier vote in July, 60 coalition MPs voted "no" to new aid for Greece. Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s finance minister, told policymakers … there was “no guarantee of success” … “If Greece stands by its obligations and the programme is completely and resolutely implemented” … An immediate payment of around €13bn is expected to be handed to Greece shortly so the country can make a €3.2bn loan repayment to the European Central Bank on Thursday.’ Right, let me hand you a bucket of money so you can pay me back a bit of what you already owe me that you can’t pay back. Please. As Einstein (or Mark Twain or Ben Franklin, depending on where you look) is reputed to have said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Surely a collective insanity is at work here, convincing otherwise sentient adults that giving a bankrupt money to discharge his debts, which he will then pay back, is insane...The total that is actually going to Greece itself will be around €3bn per year, peanuts in a €12.2trill annual GDP economy.

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