TEc - Migration creates a deepening gulf between East and West - issue is much broader in scope

I beg to strongly disagree. This is not about a gulf between East and West or North and South within the EU.
This is a much wider, bigger, far more complex issue than many would have us believe.
There is the obvious humanitarian concern more or less binding us all in the face of heartbreaking images that need no further comment.
Yet there are many more facets to what is an eminently humanitarian crisis with many implications into the future.

A pattern is now in full view in the countries that have so far been directly affected. Once authorities, and I believe silent majorities, watch helplessly as their soil is disorderly invaded by thousands in a few hours, albeit peacefully, a new mode immediately kicks in.
It suddenly dawns on many that it becomes a quantitative, logistical, cultural, economic, practical, religious, political, you name it, nightmare as well. Mayhem at the borders calls for something much much bigger than lofty rhetoric or unending generosity.

Throwing the doors wide open as Germany (apparently)did initially may be as irresponsible as slamming them tight as Hungary is attempting to do.
There being no definitive solution except ending war and strife in Syria and Iraq, the current inflow has the potential to swell beyond control or remain a problem that is hardly manageable anyway.

Indeed, the millions of internally or externally displaced people - specifically in the Middle East - is so staggeringly high that the world's major countries through the United Nations should figure out a permanent infrastructured homeland for the countless innocent victims of multiple conflicts. Such a UN administered territory might provide temporary shelter to refugees from all nations seeking safety and security, the very basic preconditions for life to exist. It would have to be a bold move costing billions but one to address what has become a permanent feature of our world.
Ultimately it may be the only solution for European nations closest to trouble spots but especially for kin-countries that have long been hard-pressed as Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey.
How have they been coping is now a mandatory question?

TEc - Staying bright in the shadow of a slowdown in China - perhaps unsurprisingly.

No wonder carmakers remain upbeat on China.

The country has skyrocketed nearly from nowhere to become the world's number one producer and consumer of motors in little over a decade.
The current slowdown may be seen down the line as a plateau reached from where the next flight is perhaps being planned. The level hit is high enough that any single-digit growth, however small, equals or surpasses the entire car market of many a country.
Besides, China's GDP growth remains impressive even if halved from the last 30 years' average.

Western car makers have already installed massive production capacity in China over the years in a clear indication of unremitting faith in that country's present and future. Indeed they account - on their own or in joint-ventures - for the better part of China's motor-vehicle production.

Given the still huge unrealized potential of Chinese society, today's slowdown is only the first hiccup in a curve that had only been seen speeding upwards up until now.

TEc - From rage to resignation - Hard-pressed by friends

Greece caved in after finding that it had been all but cornered and then boxed in. To add insult to injury the country was presented, by partners(!) not foes, with a clearly vindictive to-do list topped by near-impossible deadlines. A day of humiliation it was for the geographic territory that is the cradle of European civilization.

Words flow easily or read flowery, the meaning of which we may or may not agree with. Yet, on substance there are any number of question marks hanging over a program akin to two previous failed ones. Both further disorganised a country badly missing common sense reforms.
Whatever gains were made towards the end of 2014 have now been set back. Some will choose the easy way placing blame squarely on Syriza. Others may only just take a more lenient view.

What Greece needs is a new start that combines internal specificities with a debt burden it can carry while growing out of 5 years of severe economic contraction.
Non-Greek Institutions are finally beginning to acknowledge, again, what common-sense should have told them long ago.

But the medium-to-long-term sustainability of Greece has to be dealt with right now. This is where Politics is direly called for.
The alternative is for bail-outs to follow in rapid succession and a proud nation falling into poverty and despair.

The humiliation of GREECE

No, it is not about Varoufakis or Tsipras or Samarras or Papandreou. Despite them or because of them.

As the full picture emerges there is no fair present or fair future in a European Union beset by imbalance and a lack of political righteousness or, worse still, a pale notion of it.

Greece may eventually be pushed out of the EZ, the EU – as it happens the country is again allowed to muddle through pending further punishment - after 5 traumatic years exposed multiple internal faults, profitably overlooked by many over decades, only matched by the monumental failure of the original idea of what Europe stands for.
It  came to a head because a radical left political platform was elected to office?

And then won a referendum against all odds?
An entity awarded double legitimacy by a majority of Greeks that breaks the center-left, center-right mould of European politics.

Its approach and ways too bold to even begin to contemplate, let alone negotiate with?

Such questions and more will never be asked or, in the event they are, never be answered.
A debtor-nation standing on its knees is instead being intellectually ravaged, materially blackmailed, financially strangled in exchange for a lifeline that keeps the country afloat for some time. This is done not by foes but by purported in-house friends represented by governments and institutions now hell-bent on exacting as high a price for Greek defiance.

How dare a beggar nation make demands?
Or simply upset the commonly accepted idea that he who has the money wields the sword to decide who lives and who dies.

Shame on the European Union that has long ceased to be a political project binding the 28-member States that make it up.
Greece is being kicked around tonight like I never ever imagined possible.
There is absolutely no Politics whatsoever, only the pervasive views of Eurogroup finance ministers – especially the powerful few, the powerful one more to the point  -  whose upper hand on the de facto daily running of the EU has long been plain to see.
Europe’s heads of state are evidently at a loss, their statements constrained by the logic of an appaling system of governance badly missing balance, tools and a common goal. 
In fact they were constantly seen hiding behind the Eurogroup throughout the ongoing Greek saga.

Despite its reportedly messy internal set-up commoners in Greece deserve a great deal more respect just as commoners elsewhere.

TEc - "NO" to what? - Easy question, easy answer

There's no need to make it difficult when the answer is pretty straightforward:

NO to all that is wrong with EU governance, Eurozone governance and, of course, Greece governance too.

We shouldn't dwell on semantics and interpretation when the Greek saga has unfolded itself before our very eyes day in day out for the past 5 years at least.

Much longer to my mind, if the rootcause/s to current troubles are to be sought.

Greece and its Syriza government have taught us all a major lesson in Democracy and Politics as both being key to addressing the needs of the many. Everyone should acknowledge this basic fact regardless of ideology and the nitty gritty of how best to overcome the long drawn-out expensive Eurozone stalemate.

If a country squeezed between a rock and a hard place rises up and says NO people of goodwill across Europe, especially the leadership, should listen very carefully. Unless the enlightened few ruling today's finance-dominated economies/politics/countries are forever prepared to make a mockery of all that was previously reported as being cherished and invaluable to Europe. 

The consequences are beginning to show.

Greece does require a fix within the Eurozone.

So does the Eurozone as a whole for the benefit of every member country.

It is high time for European Politics to kick in reining in the institutions (and their actors-of-the-day) from overreaching their mandates and legitimacy, and for all to show some respect for common folk from Greece to Germany, from Finland to Portugal.

FT - Greece must be saved from political, economic and social collapse - I fully agree

Greece has long become a case study for the right reasons as well as the wrong. The more thought that's put into the case since it started unfolding long ago the greater the complexity and number of variables involved. 

I have seen any number of opinions, judgments, evaluations, assessments, attitudes, views based on political leanings, economic and financial interest, stakeholder objectivity and subjectivity, grandstanding, personal and institutional hubris, etc, etc, etc.

Nothing disguises the fact that Politics is failing miserably just about everywhere. Such massive failure is bringing misery, disquiet and human suffering in so many places at any one time!

Entire nations, nation-States - failed, on course to failure or otherwise - have fallen prey to the workings of a financial system that knows no limits. Their guarantors-of-the-day mere stooges who deliver verdicts/decisions irrespective of anything other than the rule of 'who is the more powerful?'...

It does not bode well for the future of humanity, writings are on the wall or have been that common people need and deserve something different. Better balanced, simply put.

As for the FT/TBarber's current article that triggered my short comment, will not add or detract a single word. His are incredibly wisely put together conveying the full urgency of the hour set against the grand background that brought Greece  to the brink. What is beyond the brink?

Those who can make a difference don't care to know.

Unless Politics is again made to rule over the world of finance and much-needed balance is finally restored, the world of common folk is headed for ever greater levels of uncertainty and doom.

TEc - Down but not yet out - Greece on the brink

Mismanagement at its worst would be an understatement to define all that went wrong with Greece.
The country has long been a costly affair in the making to which many powerful interests in creditor nations repeatedly turned a blind eye to.
Why did they ever provide Greek leadership - not common folk - with enough rope for them to hang their country for at least two generations? And then expect commoners to pick up the full tab irrespective of all else?
In an incomplete monetary union that would become a massive cage excessively indebted nations eventually found themselves trapped in?
Governments in the North never signalled any worry about overspending in Southern Europe, particularly in Greece where, on top of it all, issues of governance appear to be harder than in most places across the EU.

In brief, this is why the whole issue has long shifted from mere bankruptcy to a deeply political one.
Far too many questions have remained and will remain unanswered for the simple reason that they are ingrained in the system.
A system that demands fixing if ever politics is to play the central role of addressing the needs of a large number of people.

The alternative is a measure of chaos that will rapidly engulf other nations in more ways than one.