The latest request to restructure Greece's debt has been denied. with a quote from the ECB that should be classic:

A Greek debt restructuring is not the appropriate way forward -- it would create a catastrophe” because it would damage the banking system, ECB Executive Board member Juergen Stark said today in Lagonissi.

Look at this quote on their demand to privatize:

“Privatization makes a real difference,” said Poul Thomsen, head of the IMF’s Greek mission, which is in the process of reviewing the country’s progress on the bailout conditions. “If targets can be met, it will make a change to debt sustainability.”

Oh really? And that is why the US deficit is so small today, or other nations who privatized?

Seems The Greece Prime Minster, George Papandreou, is all for denying Greece any debt restructuring as well.

Greece must avoid debt restructuring and push on with budget cuts and privatisations to overcome its debt crisis, the country's Prime Minister George Papandreou and senior ECB officials said on Saturday.

Papandreou also said:

Henceforth, the European Union will escort Greece's privatisation programme as if we were conducting it ourselves

Greece is growing a spine. Seems the EU and the IMF are demanding Greece sell off their public assets, and in response to these demands, Greece said:

"The behavior of the representatives of the EU, IMF and ECB during yesterday’s press conference was unacceptable,” government spokesman George Petalotis said in a statement today, referring to the European Central Bank. “The only agent responsible for these decisions is the Greek government. We take orders only from the Greek people.”

Associated Press:

It was the first time the government has publicly struck back at the IMF and the European Union, which rescued Greece from bankruptcy but at a price that many Greeks consider too harsh.

The IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Commission delegation said Greece must privatize euro50 billion ($68 billion) in state assets and speed up structural reforms in the next few months to keep the country's troubled finances afloat. The IMF representative also said some of the frequent demonstrations against the Greek government's reforms were being carried out by groups angry at losing their "unfair advantages and privileges."

Just incredible and good for Greece. The IMF is pushing their austerity program, which is privatization and reductions in pensions, social safety nets for workers, who I guess are those of unfair advantage and priviledge.

The schizophrenic IMF has declared the world has a global jobs crisis:

AMERICA and Europe face the worst jobs crisis since the 1930s and risk ''an explosion of social unrest'', the International Monetary Fund has warned.

''The labour market is in dire straits. The Great Recession has left behind a wasteland of unemployment,'' said IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn at an Oslo jobs summit with the International Labour Federation.

A joint IMF-ILO report said 30 million jobs had been lost since the crisis, three-quarters in richer economies. Global unemployment has reached 210 million. ''The Great Recession has left gaping wounds. High and long-lasting unemployment represents a risk to the stability of existing democracies,'' it said.

The study cited evidence that victims of recession in their early 20s suffer lifetime damage and lose faith in public institutions. A new twist is an apparent decline in the ''employment intensity of growth'' as rebounding output requires fewer extra workers. As such, it may be hard to re-absorb those laid off even if recovery gathers pace. The world must create 45 million jobs a year for the next decade to tread water.

How does this square the IMF demanding austerity measures, gutting employment benefits, wages and security? It doesn't.

A 25% cut in public spending would seem extreme in midst of a deep recession like the one we have today. But the new conservative Prime Minister of Britain is planning on cuts far deeper than that.