That is how deep they went in order to have control of the austerity measures.

Here in Portugal, the Troika actually spent time (God knows how much) discussing if chocolate milk, something that unfortunately is a stable in children's diet, should be taxed at 13% or 23% VAT!!!

As insane as US taxing policies are, do prefer that food staples aren't subject to sales tax.  That said, it's a measure of how far we've strayed from need to "want" that chocolate milk is considered a staple instead of an occasional treat.  

Here in Portugal, the Troika actually spent time (God knows how much) discussing if chocolate milk, something that unfortunately is a stable in children's diet, should be taxed at 13% or 23% VAT!!!

it's the reagan 'ketchup counts as a vegetable' movie again!

it's the pettifogging quality that is so anal, that they really are that miserably shrivelled of mind beggars belief.

no wonder they make money and power their gods, it's a massive compensation.

my currency's harder than yours!  it's the emotional maturity level of 12-year old boys in a locker-room, developmentally arrested, while the morally stunted adult parts of their consciousness obsess with how much they can torture the food out of their own neighbours' children to keep another penny in their wallets.

our dystopia is their crackers and caviar.

these people are seriously disturbed psychopaths who have bribed the guards and stolen the keys to the asylum.

their speeches about reform and such are ringing ever hollower, as the sting of poverty makes more discerning political watchers and of all the under- and unemployed people curious as to exactly how neoliberal economics has brought a successfully harmonious postwar continent to its bloody knees in only 40 years!

with the moon of international discontent waxing brightly before our semi-blinded eyes, you know this tide will turn.

just a question of when and how.

just...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty