“No, I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.” She breaks off for a pointedly meaningful pause, before leaning forward.

“Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax.”

“That’s right” was Lagarde’s response when asked if she was basically “saying to the Greeks and others in Europe that they have had a nice time and it is now payback time.”

Lagarde insisted that Greece is not getting “softer” treatment than a poor country in the developing world; her remarks, though, expressed paternalistic admiration for poor school children in Africa, while dismissing children (and everyone) in Greece. She was carefully vague about when the debt crisis might end, saying, in essence, that it would only be sometime in this century. (Do we need to consult the IMF director to predict that?) When asked if one should plan on bringing euros should one travel to Greece next year, Lagarde’s remark was a coy “a holiday in Greece, it’s a good investment for the country!”

Lagarde’s uncompromising remarks — a sure sign of “growing impatience in the international community” with Greece — were made after the caretaker Greek government reported that tax rolls are down a third in the country, mired in its fifth year of a recession predicted to continue into 2013. Improving tax collection is one of the measures Greek leaders have agreed to, in order to receive bailout funds from the “troika” of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.

Germany and France are reportedly making preparations should Greece leave the euro following June 17 elections. Jens Weidmann, president of the Bundesbank, said the troika should end financial aid to Greece if it fails to follow the terms of the bailout agreement. A “failed state” and a “corrupt state” are how Jürgen Fitschen, joint head of Germany’s biggest bank, Deutsche, describes Greece.

Günter Grass Writes Poem About Greece, “Europe’s Shame”

There’s no question that many are more and more aware of how Greece is intertwined with their own economic fate. German writer and Nobel Laureate Günter Grass has published a poem entitled “Europas Schande“ (“Europe’s Shame”) in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which published his controversial poem “Was gesagt werden muss” (“What must be said”) about Israel jeopardizing world peace with nuclear power earlier this year.

Grass is sympathetic with Greece, saying that it is being condemned to poverty and that finance commissioners (read: the likes of the director of the IMF) are “giving back the cup to the brim” to Socrates (“gibt Sokrates Dir den Becher randvoll zurück”), a reference to the Greek philosopher committing suicide by drinking the hemlock.” Grass also refers to the Nazi occupation of Greece in the Second World War, writing that those who visited a “ravaged” country “wore the uniform Hölderlin in his knapsack” (“trugen zur Uniform Hölderlin im Tornister”) a reference to a German Romantic poet.

Or as a friend in Athens expressed her feelings about European financial officials’ response to Greeks living on about 700 euros a month: “well Christine Lagarde can just go [fill in expletive].”

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