Greece is Doomed! Greece is Saved!

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Things move fast in the eurozone. Here’s the latest bullet-point summary from the Guardian as of an hour ago:

  • The plan for a referendum on Greece’s membership of the eurozone has been cancelled. Prime minister admits to cabinet that it cannot go ahead.
  • There is now growing acceptance that a National Unity government may need to be created. But it is unclear if the New Democracy opposition will agree.
  • UK admits that it may have to pay more into the IMF to support financial recovery. David Cameron says it’s the right thing to do
  • Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos forces PM’s hand in early morning speech. Eurozone membership too important, he said
  • European Central Bank cuts interest rates. Mario Draghi lowers borrowing costs to 1.25%

Well, that whole referendum thing didn’t last long, did it? What’s unclear to me is what Prime Minister George Papandreou’s original goal was. Option A: He wanted to use the threat of a referendum — and a possible No vote — as leverage to get a better deal out of Germany and France. Option B: He wanted to use the referendum as a way of forcing his own citizens — and his political rivals — to come firmly to grips with the cost of rejecting the deal on offer from France and Germany.

I sort of assumed originally that Option A was his motivation, but in the end it looks like maybe it was really Option B. Papandreou had spent months negotiating this deal and felt like it was the best Greece was going to get. But riots in the streets were continuing, his own party was rebelling, and the opposition was licking its chops at the possibility of the government falling. So he wanted to force everyone’s hand with something dramatic. The referendum, it turns out, was probably his version of a come-to-Jesus moment. Do you really want the government to fall? Do you really want to reject the deal and (probably) exit the euro and leave the European Union? The answer, it turns out, is that everyone blinked. Maybe the deal isn’t so bad after all. Maybe a government of national unity isn’t a such bad idea either.

Anyway, that’s the latest. Stay tuned.

(And keep in mind that even if Greece now accepts its fate and takes the deal, there’s still plenty of skepticism that the deal is enough to save the eurozone. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet.)

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That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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