The Other McCain

by Smitty

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution points to something a little more important than a Herman Cain allegation. Greece was not supposed to have a confidence vote so soon, but:

Mr. Papandreou also said that he would seek a parliamentary vote of confidence in his administration, just four months after seeking, and winning, a similar vote to bolster his government before pushing an earlier batch of austerity measures into law.
Government sources said that the confidence vote was expected by the end of the week, with the referendum much later, in December or even January. Exactly what voters would be asked was not clear.

So, if I’m understanding this correctly, the Greek government is getting hit with the second confidence vote in 5 months, and has to get the Greeks to eat their end of the 50% haircut within a month or two.

In late October, after a series of delays, European leaders reached agreement on portions of a three-part plan to save the common currency.
They obtained an agreement from banks to take a 50 percent loss on the face value of their Greek debt. That would bring Greek debt down by 2020 to 120 percent of that nation’s gross domestic product, a figure still enormous but more sustainable for an economy driven into recession by austerity measures.

‘Reached agreement on portions’ was, according to Cowen, quoting FT, the verbal equivalent of a wardrobe malfunction:

the specific elements of the deal, that is to say the structure of the new claim on Greece, remains to be negotiated

In other words, any agreement purportedly reached by the EUrocrats is worth as much as Barack Obama’s college transcripts: you’d better see the deal in writing.

Is this the end of things? The Unreliable Smith Prediction is that the Greek people treat the German bailout with all the respect the Palestinians treated the Oslo Accords; Greece melts down; the Greeks start using their police cars for commodes by, say, January.