The Greek crisis: When political desire triumphs economic reality

According to the Greek website Kathimerini, Troika talks break down. A second meeting between troika officials in Athens and Greece's Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis broke down on Tuesday, after the two sides hit a deadlock for the second time in the same day.

By John M. Mason: “It’s a question of courage or actually facing the issues, not being in denial, accepting the truth, accepting the reality and then dealing with it.”

By Plan B Economics:Greece is Europe's equivalent of the U.S. subprime mortgage market in 2008. It is a small component of the overall economic pie, but its failure could create cascading catastrophic effects on the entire European economy.A Greek default would likely trigger a widespread risk aversion, sending European sovereign bond spreads wider and possibly sending other nations into default.

Everyone says Europe has a debt crisis. But does it not instead have a morality crisis?What I mean is that, technically speaking, there are lots of possible solutions to the problem, such as some mix of:

By Simon Johnson Most experienced watchers of the eurozone are expecting another serious crisis to break out in early 2011.  This projected crisis is tied to the rollover funding needs of weaker eurozone governments, i.e., debts falling due in March through May, and therefore seems much more predictable than what happened to Greece or Ireland in 2010.  The investment bankers who fell over themselves to lend to these countries on the way up, now lead the way in talking up the prospects for a serious crisis.