Greek PM begs EU for permission to ease collective punishment

The sight of Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras begging for permission to give some relief to the Greek people from the EU's punishing - and ultimately doomed to failure - austerity measures should be setting off alarm bells all over Europe.

Merk-heil, Merk-heil ...

In his speech to the Greek Parliament he set out plans for reducing Greek debt, accelerating the privatisation of state-owned utilities and services and the accelerated sale of state-owned property.  Tax and spend in Greece is controlled by a group of unelected economists answerable to the EU Commission, EU Central Bank and IMF so Samaras is effectively just reading from a script with the possible exception of the begging to be allowed to scale back some of the collective punishment being meted out at the Greek people.

I say possible exception because it's quite likely that the EU/ECB/IMF appointed bureaucrats just can't balance the books with the EU-imposed austerity measures they're forced to work with and with Samaras being nothing more than a sock puppet, have used him to ask their bosses for a bit of relief.

The elected leader of an EU member state having to beg the EU for permission to help out his citizens should worry other leaders of EU member states more than a little and their people even more so.  The EU staged a coup d'état in Greece (and Italy) in the guise of a friendly bailout and so far they've got away with it.  History has shown that allowing aggressive regimes to get away with taking over weaker neighbours - even with a vichy government helping them - rarely ends well.