A concentration camp called Greece.

The negotiations between Greece and its creditors, consisting of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF, have broken down once again. The troika wants Greece to cut expenses, by cutting pensions, so that it can generate a budget surplus to pay off its debts. The present left wing government was elected to negotiate an easing of austerity, if not an end, to ease the suffering of its citizens. And how they are suffering. The condition of the health system is so dire that average life span has been shortened by 3 years during the 5 years of austerity. " The situation is like a war zone without the bullets," said a charity worker. No wonder the Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras told the troika to  get real. But, unlike Brazil Greece is a part of Europe, where prices are falling compared to Brazil, where the rate of inflation is over 7%, the Euro is a stable currency whereas the Brazilian real has fallen by 14%, the interest rate in Europe is 0% compared to Brazil's 13.75% and being a member of the European Union means that Greeks can travel and trade freely all over the continent. Surely Greece should not be in this state. The creditors insist that Greece must have a primary budget surplus by reducing government expenditure and increasing taxes and Greece did have one in 2013. Trouble is that unemployment has increased to 25%, so direct tax collections are bound to suffer, plus reducing government expenditure, by sacking civil servants, cutting salaries and cutting pensions, has caused a contraction of 25% in the economy which means less indirect tax collections. Germany being the largest economy, and the main lender, insists on painful structural reforms because any leniency would encourage Greece and other nations to get back to the bad old ways. After World War II creditors wrote off half of all German debts, allowing the economy to grow again. The troika gave loans to Greece to pay off private lenders, essentially European banks. This transferred the debt from private lenders to central banks and saved banks from a Lehman Brothers type of collapse. All this was playacting to gain time to protect banks while making Greeks suffer extreme deprivation. Banks in Cyprus, on the other hand, were made to write off 47.5% of depositor and shareholder money because Russians would be the biggest losers. As cynical a piece of deceit as we are ever likely to see. Yet they could have helped. If they wanted to punish the government they could have lent money to private companies, such as Volkswagen and Siemens, to manufacture in Greece so as to create new jobs and give some hope. If Greece has to exit the Euro it will have to default on its debts and will struggle to find new financing. If the Euro breaks up Germans will suddenly find that an expensive Mark will make business very difficult indeed.