So, it got to the point where the president of Germany himself, a former director of the IMF no less, had to intervene in order to rein in the thoughtlessness of Merkel in the Greek affair. Devastating commentaries in the press had preceded him, excoriating the chancellor's constant dithering and disruption which ratcheted up uncertainty in the financial markets and thus left the field wide open to speculators to trash Greece beyond any reasonable extent and also to commence the next phase of their onslaught, this time against Portugal and Spain.

Koehler's words at the Munich economic forum today were scathing. In the past few weeks politics in Europe capitulated before the financial markets which have nothing to do with the real economy but are driven by credit and a psychology of reckless gambling. The "sinner" countries must of course radically reform their public finances, but in this climate of speculative frenzy even if they completely kill their economies they stand no chance of emerging from the hole they dug themselves in. It is imperative that they be helped to help themselves. And the greatest help they could have been given from the very first minute was a firm and unequivocal commitment that the Eurozone stood behind them.

Merkel studiously avoided such a declaration, fixated as she has been on the damned Nordrhein-Westfallen election and the antics of her coalition partners rather than on the stability of the European project. The present writer for one, among many others, has been trying hard to give her the benefit of the doubt throughout the period of her irritating deviousness and her false triumphs as "Madame Non" back in March. But it finally reached the point that her obstinacy, presented under the Kantian guise that the sinners must pay the penalty for their infraction of the moral code of sound fiscal behavior, was threatening to bring the whole house down, the sinners and the righteous entangled in each other's arms as the roof fell in. Fiat iustitia, pereat mundus indeed.

The relentless Greek-bashing of the past few days got too much even for those, like me, who have no affection whatsoever for the bunch of thieves and nincompoops who run this country. For the thing is that this vicious, incorrigible, mendacious, double-dealing, benighted ruling class has already thrown in the towel and surrendered the running of the economy (as they ought to, for the benefit of their people) to the international authorities. Whatever measures Merkel wants them to adopt they will indeed, under duress, assent to.

The huge question, surely, is whether they will be carried out. But, given strict international control the chances are that they will be. Still this cannot be ascertained within the space of a few days. Hence, it cannot be a precondition for releasing the aid. The rescue is needed immediately in order to put out the fire that has been spreading under our very eyes in the past forty eight hours. The rest will be systematically and pitilessly achieved over the coming months -pitilessly, that is, with respect to those ravenous cliques that ran the kleptocracy up to now and are presently screaming the loudest against "the foreigners", according to the well-tested recipe of autistic nationalism that has such a grip on the public mind here. For one, including the international representatives, must show pity to the rest of us, who for the past three decades have borne the brunt of our worthless politicians' crimes and are again called upon to foot the bill for the shambles they made of this country.

There will be strikes and demonstrations, of course. But there are signs that an underlying acceptance of the need for drastic overhaul is also penetrating popular mentality. The silly side of the prime minister, feeling obliged to kowtow to the ranting and raving squads of a degenerate leftism in order to pay lip service to his father's wretched "socialism", will also obstruct the course that he himself, either through choice or clumsiness, had to set in motion.

But when all is said and done, the Greek fiscal mess would have remained a relatively minor disturbance at the fringes of Europe, had not Merkel's posturings and her capitulation to her populist press stoked it into a full blown world crisis. Let us hope that she has at last seen the error of her ways -not least because of the severe scolding she suffered at Koehler's hands.