Opinion of Alexis Tsipras

[Landslide Lyndon]

Mega-HP. He is a weak leader that can't control even his own party.
He has appointed a psychopathic narcissist  as FinMin, a crypto-fascist shrew as President of the Parliament and a bunch of incompetent anti-European neo-Stalinists and far-right loons at his cabinet.

His indecisiveness and procrastination has brought us into a much worse place than we were four months ago, his arrogance and divisive rhetoric has alienated even our closest allies (Cyprus) and his only "accomplishments" so far have been the abolishment of the few structural reforms enacted by the previous governments. 

[Landslide Lyndon]

Mega-HP. He is a weak leader that can't control even his own party.
He has appointed a psychopathic narcissist  as FinMin, a crypto-fascist shrew as President of the Parliament and a bunch of incompetent anti-European neo-Stalinists and far-right loons at his cabinet.

His indecisiveness and procrastination has brought us into a much worse place than we were four months ago, his arrogance and divisive rhetoric has alienated even our closest allies (Cyprus) and his only "accomplishments" so far have been the abolishment of the few structural reforms enacted by the previous governments. 

At least from the polls, it seems that the Greek people support him, which should count for something.

Not anymore. Approval of his government has fallen from 83% in February to 40% now.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Mega-HP. He is a weak leader that can't control even his own party.
He has appointed a psychopathic narcissist  as FinMin, a crypto-fascist shrew as President of the Parliament and a bunch of incompetent anti-European neo-Stalinists and far-right loons at his cabinet.

His indecisiveness and procrastination has brought us into a much worse place than we were four months ago, his arrogance and divisive rhetoric has alienated even our closest allies (Cyprus) and his only "accomplishments" so far have been the abolishment of the few structural reforms enacted by the previous governments.  

At least from the polls, it seems that the Greek people support him, which should count for something.

Not anymore. Approval of his government has fallen from 83% in February to 40% now.

What was Samaras's approval this many months in?

Samaras's approval was consistently low. He was always seen as the lesser of two evils.
Tsipras OTOH was elected with great hopes of bringing something new but he quickly showed his true colors of being just another politician hellbent to protect and strengthen the clientelistic state that brought the crisis.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Mega-HP. He is a weak leader that can't control even his own party.
He has appointed a psychopathic narcissist  as FinMin, a crypto-fascist shrew as President of the Parliament and a bunch of incompetent anti-European neo-Stalinists and far-right loons at his cabinet.

His indecisiveness and procrastination has brought us into a much worse place than we were four months ago, his arrogance and divisive rhetoric has alienated even our closest allies (Cyprus) and his only "accomplishments" so far have been the abolishment of the few structural reforms enacted by the previous governments. 

At least from the polls, it seems that the Greek people support him, which should count for something.

Not anymore. Approval of his government has fallen from 83% in February to 40% now.

What was Samaras's approval this many months in?

Samaras's approval was consistently low. He was always seen as the lesser of two evils.
Tsipras OTOH was elected with great hopes of bringing something new but he quickly showed his true colors of being just another politician hellbent to protect and strengthen the clientelistic state that brought the crisis.

genuine question- with Tsipras's fall in popularity, why is SYRIZA still polling double-digit leads?

Because the main opposition parties are even more loathed than SYRIZA.
Even so, the huge 20 points leads of March and April are long gone. Now most polls show SYRIZA ahead by 8-9 points, more or less the result of January 25.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Not that PASOK has any relevance at this point, but are any of the people standing to replace Venizelos any good? Loverdos in particular seems like a tool from what I've read.

No, they are all pretty much useless. PASOK is dead and nothing can resurrect it.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Huh? Where do they get these data?
Just yesterday we had a new poll where SYRIZA's lead declined from 14,5 points to 12. And that was one of the best for them in a long time.

[Landslide Lyndon]

they do have allies -- Tsipras has shown signs of being close with the Latin American 'pink tide' leaders, and met with Putin a week ago or so -- you know Putin could throw Greece a small, but possibly decisive bone just to piss the West off.  it's obvious that's why they're doing what they're doing with Snowden -- it is not like he is of any advantage to them, but pisses the US power system (though not the American people) off like nothing else.  

God bless their effort.

LOL! Putin has urged Tsipras to strike a deal with EU and IMF.
In case you missed it he isn't exactly flush with money right now to squander tens of billions for paying Greece's 45 and 50-year old pensioners or our brand new government mouthpiece TV station.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Im wondering about the much bigger implications of a grexit.

People on the "soft left" aka Keynesians like Stiglitz, Krugman claimed that greece's problems wasn't that it spent too much but only they weren't allowed to spend more and if they spend more then "their problems would of been gone compared to if they done austerity". While totally ignoring that for the past 30 years the greek state has been in a state of fiscal expansion through foreign borrowing.

What the heck are you talking about?
Krugman is saying all these years that Greece is a special case and when he recently met with our political leadership he urged them to stay in the Eurozone because the alternative would be chaos.

He was against austerity for Spain and Ireland, countries who were running surpluses till the crisis of 2008 and their problems had to do with their banking systems, not fiscal profligacy.

[Landslide Lyndon]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-19/greece-s-ruling-party-goes-to-war-with-its-own-central-bank

Greece’s Ruling Party Goes to War With Its Own Central Bank

The game theory part of me still feel this is a Tsipras tactic to convince the rest of EU that he is not rational and that it is best they back down from this game of chicken because "Mad Tsipras" will not.

That would be giving Tsipras too much credit. The truth is probably that his entire negotiating tactic until now has been a huge improvisation. He and his government have no clue what they want and what they do.

[Landslide Lyndon]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-19/greece-s-ruling-party-goes-to-war-with-its-own-central-bank

Greece’s Ruling Party Goes to War With Its Own Central Bank

The game theory part of me still feel this is a Tsipras tactic to convince the rest of EU that he is not rational and that it is best they back down from this game of chicken because "Mad Tsipras" will not.

That would be giving Tsipras too much credit. The truth is probably that his entire negotiating tactic until now has been a huge improvisation. He and his government have no clue what they want and what they do.

He's stuck between a rock and a hard place. He can agree to the proposals by the EU in return for money to repay the IMF. Or default and leave the euro. Both choices will painful for greece. With the grexit being worse.  I think in the end he will put the proposals by the EU to a referendum and will go with whatever decision the majority chooses.

He himself said just a few days ago that a referendum or new elections are not going to happen.
The political environment is too volatile and SYRIZA's big leads could easily collapse after the voters have a taste of what default really means.

[Landslide Lyndon]

He should have told the greedy bankers to take a hike.

Obviously you don't know dipsh**t about the Greek crisis. It's our state that went bankrupt and threatens to take the banks with it, not the other way around like Ireland.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Tsipras put himself in a bind willfully by toppling the previous government and promising everything to everyone during the campaign.
He knew all too well our situation, yet he preferred to tell sweet lies to the voters and stoke the flames of nationalism and populism. If it wasn't my country on the stake, I would shed no tears for his miserable failure.

[Landslide Lyndon]

The "reforms" that the EC, ECB, and especially the IMF, are trying to force down Greece's throat would not actually do anything to resolve the current issues. They would only make things worse, as the previous "reforms" have for the past five years.

And there was no hyperbole in my comments. Some people are literally starving, or living in houses without water or electricity, or don't have a house at all. That's mere reality.

Sorry Antonio but there has been no reforms all these years by our governments. They just named reforms the cutting of salaries and pensions. Our public service remains as bloated and corrupt as in 2009 and nobody dares to touch it because they are afraid of the electoral consequences.

Papandreou was the only Prime Minister who dares to take on the special interests and he was toppled by them.

[Landslide Lyndon]

But these cuts were what the Troika asked for! Even now, the negotiations stalled largely before the IMF was bent on imposing yet another cut on pensions! The Troika has no interest in actual structural reforms that would allow Greece to perform its duties as a State while durably resolving its debt issue. All they're interested in is in enforcing the ideology of austerity, in the face of all evidence that points to it being a complete failure.

Troika just asked for us to achieve some fiscal targets. They left to us how we d'achieve that. And our governments instead of reforms and cracking down corruption and bureaucracy, preferred to levy more taxes and cut salaries and pensions. 

[Landslide Lyndon]

Troika just asked for us to achieve some fiscal targets. They left to us how we d'achieve that.

This is patently false. All the accounts I have heard of the talks (coming from mainstream media sources, not some random leftist hackblog) pointed out that the creditors had asked for very specific reforms. The IMF in particular was hellbent on imposing cuts to pensions.

Allow me to know better. One of the grudges of the pro-reform and pro-EU camp here in Greece is that troika never insisted on pushing the Greek government into more reforms and less taxes.

As for the pensions, what they asked from us is to cut the pensions above 2000 euros and those of people under 60 years old (mainly civil servants who got some sweet deals from previous governments and retired at ages 45-50) in order for our system to remain solvent.

Troika just asked for us to achieve some fiscal targets. They left to us how we d'achieve that.

This is patently false. All the accounts I have heard of the talks (coming from mainstream media sources, not some random leftist hackblog) pointed out that the creditors had asked for very specific reforms. The IMF in particular was hellbent on imposing cuts to pensions.

Juncker has explicitly stated that he was fine with cutting the military instead.

What they did not want were the measures they did not believe would achieve the goals.

Anyway, the goals were, probably, politically unfeasible.

Maybe Juncker said so, but the IMF never dropped their demands. In fact, I heard at some point that Greece wanted the IMF out of the negotiation and sought to strike a deal with the more cooperative EC and Central Bank, but the latter refused.

Kammenos, our Min. of Defence, said explicitly today that it was our government who refused to cut military spending, supposedly because we'd compromise our ability to defend against Turkey.
That's totally BS of course since he spares no cost when it comes to organizing military parades (which where abolished by the previous government to save money) and photo-ops of himself at various Aegean islands and military outposts.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I've been generally sympathetic to the Greek plight, but this is pretty reckless behavior by Tsipras.  I think that the referendum is a good idea in principle, but pulling out of negotiations and springing this on everyone like this is highly irresponsible.

Most people in the pro-European camp realize now that Tsipras's plan all along was to waste time with a sham negotiation until the last minute, then denounce them for being unreasonable and use the subsequent turmoil as an excuse to leave Eurozone and return to drachma.

Let's face it, these people are far-left ideologues, real ones, not like those imagined by Republicans. Most of them were members of Communist Party for many years. They never liked Greece's participation in the EU, let alone the Eurozone. They now have the chance of their lifetimes to transform Greece into Venezuela, and they aren't afraid to divide the Greek people into patriots and traitors in order to succeed.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I've been generally sympathetic to the Greek plight, but this is pretty reckless behavior by Tsipras.  I think that the referendum is a good idea in principle, but pulling out of negotiations and springing this on everyone like this is highly irresponsible.

Most people in the pro-European camp realize now that Tsipras's plan all along was to waste time with a sham negotiation until the last minute, then denounce them for being unreasonable and use the subsequent turmoil as an excuse to leave Eurozone and return to drachma.

I'd imagine that many of the creditors were rather annoyed that they had to learn about the referendum plan on Twitter.

ECB is expected to end emergency lending to Greek banks today according to BBC sources.

Even the Greek negotiators learned about the referendum from twitter and while they were negotiating a compromise until that moment.
This is amateur hour and unfortunately it's our country's fate that's on stake.