tl;dr: "This time it's different." The piece was more persuasive than I thought it would be, and Tsipras' diagnosis of the cause of the problem is dead-on: thi

tl;dr: "This time it's different." The piece was more persuasive than I thought it would be, and Tsipras' diagnosis of the cause of the problem is dead-on: this is a crisis of insolvency, not illiquidity. The problem with what Tsipras is asking for is that markets get a vote, too, and the outright forgiveness of Greek debt would cause massive upheaval -- potentially to the point of making the EU itself unsustainable. I think the only way the Germans will agree to debt forgiveness at meaningful quantums is if Greece leaves the Euro currency union and goes back to the drachma. That would send a powerful message to the financial markets -- "you get one mulligan, and the price of that mulligan is leaving the Eurozone". Of course, Tsipras doesn't want that. He wants a "European New Deal", the details of which he provides rather sparingly. My guess is that if he were to flesh out these details, Germans would find them not only unreasonable but laughable. The "wild card" scenario is if SYRIZA undertakes a project of massive wealth confiscation from the Greek elite. That actually might move the needle of German public opinion--one of the biggest points of outrage among the German people over the last 5 years has been the juxtaposition of media coverage of the excesses of wealthy Greeks (and their creative non-payment of taxes) with the math of how much each German family was being asked to give to rescue Greece. Start levying massive one-time luxury taxes on Greek-domiciled assets of Greek citizens (with asset seizures as penalty of non-payment) and maybe you get enough schadenfreude flowing in Germany to meaningfully alter public opinion.