60% actually.

"Here’s how it works. To join the Eurozone, nations must agree to keep their deficits to no more than 3% of GDP and total debt to no more than 60% of GDP. In a recession, that’s plain insane. By contrast, President Obama pulled the USA out of recession by increasing deficit spending to a staggering 9.8% of GDP, and he raised the nation’s debt to 101% from a pre-recession 62%. Republicans screamed, but it worked. The US has lower unemployment than any Eurozone nation."
Abstracted from;-
http://99getsmart.com/greeced-we-vot...s/]GREECE’D: We Voted ‘No’ to slavery, but ‘Yes’ to our chains

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Dave

But "austerity" is a political ideologue not a credible fiscal policy.

No doubt about that; see the figures in the post about how the USA has handled its' own economy.
Incidentally, ref the Eurozone requirements concerning GDP (the 60% figure):
The Debt to GDP ratio of the UK in 2010 was about 50%, now in 2015 it is 80% and still rising. So much for austerity over the past 5 years.
For Greece, their ratio is about 180% which pretty much makes it un-repayable, ever.

Austerity is the policy of the central powers of the EU and Greece is now being told to pay the price of membership; they are to be made an example to any other countries of the Eurozone who may feel like back-sliding from the new European order.
In the past couple of days these actions with regard to Greece have been described, by some commentators, as "a cruxifixion" and "waterboarding" of the nation.

Thinking citizens of the EU may wish to bear these events in mind for the next time that a referendum is run, or even considered to be a good idea.

ps
To obfuscate the issues, many UK politicians confuse the definitions of deficit and debt; who knows how often this is done deliberately, knowingly of the correct definitions or, simply, as further mis-information (there's that word, again) for their public to swallow.

pps
Anyone with a credit card should be able to understand how "deficit" and "debt" are differentiated.

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Dave

Further, with the latest overnight decisions that have come from Brussels, it is clear that the German govn have not done what some of their best-regarded-economics experts have advocated to their own populations, as seen in this document:
CESifo Group Munich - Publication Details

In essence, the politicians of the Eurozone continue to kick the can further along the road, with the proviso that this time around the Greeks are going to pay more toward the price of their membership than they ever realised to be likely, or possible; Greek sacred cows are lined up to be sacrificed.

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Dave

Whatever the ins and outs of economic theory I'm not sure I'd ever want to play poker with the Greek pm. He does seem to have bluffed his way to walking off with the jackpot.

According to some French thinkers/commentators ("Voltaire" no less), it is a conspiracy - in reference to the OP and associated poll.

An Anglo-Saxon/Nazi conspiracy to boot.

Behind the Greek Debt, by Thierry Meyssan

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Dave

On balance, i would say that he has lost the game of poker.
He has lost his game of bluff with the Troika, having thrown away an earlier hand that offered a better deal (prior to his referendum) only to now have the new, much more austire current deal; in that process, he may have lost the support of his own party back home - the next 24-36 hours will tell on that one.

So, overall, there can be little doubt that his poker skills are lacking and the jackpot is illusory (maybe the penny will drop for the Greek people, as below).

Likewise, the EU has also forfit an immense amount of trust (to quote Angela M); now it can be seen how the non-elected, non-accountable-to-anyone Eurozone, ECB, EU Commission etc etc are really operating; there is not one single Euro currency in practice and the currency that carries that name is working in a manner akin to the earlier European exchange rate mechanism (ERM).
It was the ERM that the UK had to drop out of when it all became too much for the UK economy (interest rates at 15% wasn't it??).
Greece has yet to arrive at a similar conclusion and appropriate action.

We sure have moved on down the road from the days of the EEC, established to provide Germany with a market for its' manufacturing and France with protection of their agricultural smallholdings.

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Dave

It's all going to collapse, all across the world. We are just now seeing the what I think is the start of something that could very well put us into the dark ages. It's been building and building and soon the ivory towers will fall.

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"Loud pipes save lives."
Motorcycles for sale

It's quite remarkable how what was unthinkable a year ago, two years ago or whenever is now not only happening but scarely considered to be unacceptable.

https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2015/09...a-second-wave/

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Dave