The lie (sold most vehemently of all to the German public) is that austerity measures were every going to put Greece into a position to pay off it's debt.

What was needed was a short sharp ECB intervention at the beginning to show that it wasn't going to tolerate random speculation in Eurozone government bonds - and then an EU-wide dose of fiscal spending to dig Europe out of the worst situation since the Great Depression.

Ever since Austerity was chosen as the policy response, we've been locked into a death spiral. Many on this site (including me) kept hoping that we could break out of that - but the reality is as long as people keep pretending the Austerity could work in the middle of a Lesser Depression, the more doomed we are.