An article from The Economist (gated): Built to foster friendship, the euro is manufacturing misery instead

The piece opens with it'd be funny if it wasn't true point:

How to make sense of a process in which Greek voters loudly spurn a euro-zone bail-out offer in a referendum, only to watch Alexis Tsipras, their prime minister, immediately seek a worse deal that is flatly rejected by the euro zone, which in turn presses a yet more stringent proposal to which Mr Tsipras humbly assents? Better, perhaps, not to try.

It goes on to say:

  • The immediate danger of Grexit has at least been averted
  • Comes at the price of a vast taxpayer-funded bail-out for Greece, worth up to €86 billion ... and a humiliating capitulation by Mr Tsipras
  • Greece's economy is in tatters
  • Its creditors are fuming
  • Europe's institutions are in despair
  • Even non-euro countries have been sucked into the nightmare: a bridge loan designed to keep Greece afloat while the bail-out talks proceed looks set to tap a fund to which all EU countries have contributed

There's more ...

Europe's single currency, designed to foster unity and ease trade between its members, has thus become a ruthless generator of misery for almost all of them.

Dear, oh dear.