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Referendum on whether to accept a (now-expired) deal. Sounds like a tantalizing prospect, and yes, today is the day. Perhaps I’ve made it a habit of writing about votes and then not following up, but I’ll continue nonetheless. Today the Greeks decide whether they want to move forward with austerity and the creditors’ conditions by voting Yes, or whether they want to reject these conditions by voting No.

In case of a Yes vote, there will probably be early elections and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will likely resign, with the likely result being a long depression according to Joseph Stiglitz. (Much worse than the current situation.) In case of a No vote, Tsipras will remain, and Greece may have to leave the Eurozone, but its future will be its own making. The recent IMF report shows that the path forward with creditors that a Yes vote would hope for is unsustainable. That makes sense of course: a bailout to make a payment on a previous bailout, coupled with further austerity and monetary controls that make the economic growth necessary to ever have a hope of paying off the bailouts all but impossible? Sounds pretty unsustainable to me.

Add to all of this the way Europe is trying to control Greece politically, and a Yes vote is impossible, at least for me if I had a vote. Economic tyranny is still tyranny. I hope Greece realizes that today and votes how the top economists would. (I won’t get into the historical overtones, but there is plenty of that to read out there.)

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