The Greek Government Punts

Greece faces a miserable choice: either stay in the Euro and accept the terms dictated by France and Germany, offering a 50% cut in Greek debt in exchange for even more draconian cuts in government spending than the ones that have already driven Greeks to violent protests, followed by (mostly likely) a decade of economic stagnation, or, leave the Euro and default on their debts, which would trigger a terrible financial and economic crisis and then nobody knows what. So the government, knowing it would face intense criticism no matter what it did, has called a referendum and asked the voters to decide. That way the government can say, as things get awful (as they will), "we are only doing what the voters insisted."