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The International Monetary Fund’s top staff misled their own board, made a series of calamitous misjudgments in Greece, became euphoric cheerleaders for the euro project, ignored warning signs of impending crisis, and collectively failed to grasp an elemental concept of currency theory. This is the lacerating verdict of the IMF’s top watchdog on the fund’s tangled political role in the eurozone debt crisis, the most damaging episode in the history of the Bretton Woods institutions. It describes a “culture of complacency”, prone to “superficial and mechanistic” analysis, and traces a shocking breakdown in the governance of the IMF, leaving it...

Greece’s predicament is simple. It has debt repayments to make this summer and it doesn’t have the money to pay the bills. The European Union can solve this acute cashflow problem by unlocking the funds pledged to Greece under the terms of last summer’s bailout agreement, but it will only do so if Athens demonstrates that it is serious about sorting out its budget. Austerity today will lead to generosity from EU finance ministers when they meet on Tuesday. Here’s where things get interesting. The difference between this Sunday and all the other tension-packed Sundays that have studded the Greek...

Greece's government is set to pass controversial pension cuts on Sunday. Retirees are livid, and unions are on strike, Jannis Papadimitriou reports from Athens.

Greece is running out of money. The government in Athens is raiding the budgets of the health service and public utilities to pay salaries and pensions. Without fresh financial support it will struggle to make a debt payment due in July. No, this is not a piece from the summer of 2015 reprinted by mistake. Greece, after a spell out of the limelight, is back. Another summer of threats, brinkmanship and all-night summits looms. The problem is a relatively simple one. Greece is bridling at the unrealistic demands of the European commission and the International Monetary Fund to agree to...

The feud between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European side of Greece's troika of creditors is old news. However, Wikileaks' publication of a dialogue between key IMF players suggests that we are approaching something of a hazardous endgame. Ever since the first Greek 'bailout' program was signed, in May 2010, the IMF has been violating its own "primary directive": the obligation not to fund insolvent governments. As a result, the IMF's leadership has been facing a revolt from its staff members who demand an exit strategy arguing that, if the EU continues to obstruct the debt relief necessary...

BERLIN — Germany's parliament overwhelmingly approved a third bailout for Greece on Wednesday, removing a key hurdle to providing new loans to the country and keeping it from defaulting on its debts in as little as 24 hours. The vote's result also seemed to dispel any speculation that Chancellor Angela Merkel would have difficulty getting her conservative bloc to sign on. Lawmakers voted 454-113 in favor, with 18 abstentions. The approval is among the last due from parliaments across Europe, with the Dutch scheduled to vote later Wednesday, after which Greece is expected to get the first installment of its...

“All diplomacy is the continuation of war by other means,” former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai once quipped. These days, the same might be said for eurozone summits. The European Union was founded to ease the continent’s toxic wartime legacy, to allow Germany to help lead the continent, not dominate it. But in the aftermath of Greece’s most recent bailout this summer, the harsh austerity terms imposed on Greece have created an unprecedented level of animosity between the two countries. Now, as the rancor ripples across borders, many are questioning the EU’s political and economic future. Under the terms of the...

Gold just hit a five-year low. On Friday morning, the precious metal fell more than 1% to as low as $1,129.80 an ounce, the lowest since 2010. In a morning note to clients on Friday, Accendo Markets wrote: "Gold ($1,144) lower yet again after the German conservatives voted to start talking about the details of a third Greek bailout while Grexit plans were locked away for the time being. So when investors are confident, they sell gold; when they're worried, they don't buy it. A strong US dollar with all this talk of interest-rate hikes likely contributing to gold's seeming...

Greek banks are preparing contingency plans for a possible “bail-in” of depositors amid fears the country is heading for financial collapse, bankers and businesspeople with knowledge of the measures said on Friday. The plans, which call for a “haircut” of at least 30 per cent on deposits above €8,000, sketch out an increasingly likely scenario for at least one bank, the sources said.

President of Greek Banks Association Louka Katseli appealed at the citiznes to return their money to the banks. “Banks are absolutely trustworthy,” Katseli told Mega TV “as guaranteed by the ECB and the Bank Association, but they would have been even more powerful if 40 billion euros had not been withdrawn in the last months. Katseli, a former PASOK Minister, appealed to citizens to return their deposits to the banks “now that the banks are open” after a three-week holiday and capital controls. “Let’s all help our economy,” Katseli urged Greeks and added “If you take your money out of...

Greece may be dealing with a debt crisis, but the average U.S. household may have more to lose. The fate of debt-troubled Greece is now only days away from being decided. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras requested bailout funds on Wednesday, promising to submit reform proposals later this week. Either the country will agree to severe austerity measures in exchange for a reprieve from its lenders or will have to exit the eurozone and strike out on its own. Whatever happens, the average American may be worse off than Greece. Here are three ways to look at it: 1) Americans...

"Elections change nothing. There are rules." Those were the words of Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany's finance minister and the nightmare of Europe's anti-austerity movements. And looking at the bailout proposal that Greece submitted to its creditors on Thursday night, he wasn't wrong. The Greek government is accepting the overwhelming majority of the deal just rejected at its referendum, and it will get no up-front debt relief.

It’s true, as Paul Krugman says, that Greece and Puerto Rico are not in exactly the same position. PR is bust to some extent, yes, but it’s not in the middle of a catastrophe, as Greece is. However, there is also a similarity in their situations, one that’s extremely instructive. They’re both suffering from being in a monetary policy zone, a currency zone, that isn’t really suitable for their circumstances. One of the two is in a fiscal policy union as well as that monetary union, the other is not. And it’s long been agreed that if you’re to have...

The size of the victory went well beyond the polling consensus that the referendum was too close to call. Six out of ten Greeks said “no” to European Union demands – a staggering figure in any election. This suggests that Tsipras tapped into a deep-seated feeling among Greeks to send the EU a message. That message is not just a “no” to austerity. It’s a “no” to how Greeks have been portrayed by European politicians and media: they live off EU largesse, avoid taxes, spend lavishly. More painfully, Greeks have been portrayed as lazy, and don’t pay a price for...

In 2011 the biggest fear from the Greek financial crisis was that it would cause a ripple effect throughout the global economy. But despite years given to de-leverage themselves, banks worldwide are still exposed to Greece, carrying more derivatives than ever tied to the tiny European state. Now that the Greek citizens have rejected the austerity measures proposed by the EU, we are facing a real potential of a Greek default, which could trigger a cascade collapse of credit default swaps and cause the implosion of the German central bank. Then, a continent away, we are facing trouble of a...

[W]ith the “no” vote in Sunday’s Greek referendum on bailout terms posing the biggest challenge yet to decades of European integration, risks to the European project resulting from Germany’s rise as the Continent’s most powerful country are becoming clear. On Friday, Spanish antiausterity leader Pablo Iglesias urged his countrymen: “We don’t want to be a German colony.” On Sunday, after Greece’s result became clear, Italian populist Beppe Grillo said, “Now Merkel and bankers will have food for thought.” On Monday, Ms. Merkel flew to Paris for crisis talks amid signs the French government was resisting Berlin’s hard line on Greece....

Greece has proposed a tax amnesty in an effort to collect revenue on billions of euros that its citizens are believed to have quietly stashed in Swiss bank accounts, the NZZ am Sonntag paper reported. The plan, which still needs Greek parliamentary approval and a final accord with Switzerland, is to levy a flat 21 percent tax on such assets to make them legitimate, raising millions that the government in Athens desperately needs, the Sunday paper said, citing unidentified sources. "We welcome the fact that Greece has presented a proposal to resolve this," it quoted Mario Tuor, communications director at...

The EU's unity, solidarity and international standing are at risk from Greece's debt, Russia's role in Ukraine, Britain's attempt to change its relationship with the bloc, and Mediterranean migration.

U.S. futures are sharply lower after the Greek vote, and CNBC will have live coverage of the aftermath tonight at 8 p.m. ET. The Greek people voted resoundingly on Sunday to reject proposals from their European creditors. S&P 500 futures fell 1.5 percent in early trading after 6 p.m. ET (2200 GMT).

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Greece lurched into uncharted territory and an uncertain future in Europe's common currency Sunday after voters overwhelmingly rejected demands by international creditors for more austerity measures in exchange for a bailout of its bankrupt economy. Results showed 61 percent voted "no," compared with 38 percent for "yes," with 93 percent of the vote counted. The referendum - Greece's first in more than four decades - came amid severe restrictions on financial transactions in the country, imposed last week to stem a bank run that accelerated after the vote was called.