Greek lawmakers held up their end of the bargain by agreeing, despite mass riots in Athens, to crushing austerity measures required by the “troika” (the European Union, the IMF and the European Central Bank) in order to receive a new bailout. But the European finance ministers remain hesitant to deliver the bailout funds, claiming to be wary of what they consider past broken promises by Greece.

As I mentioned on Sunday, the Greek Parliament agreed to a bailout deal that exchanges funds from Europe for new austerity measures that will sink the economy even further. The measures effectively destroy labor law and decimate wages.

Amid general strikes and riots in Athens, the Greek Parliament passes a late-night vote on new austerity measures that are seen in European capitals as a prerequisite to the release of bailout funds for Greece.

This must be the day when everything gets sewn up into neat little packages. The Greek government has announced a deal has been reached to secure their second bailout, though one junior partner has not confirmed agreement. The head of the European Central Bank is saying a deal has been done as well.

Greek bailout talks have deadlocked again, but at the moment the culprit is not the hedge funds seeking a higher payout on the distressed debt they bought, but the “troika” of the EU, ECB and the IMF. They gave Greece a Monday deadline to accept bailout terms. And those terms, frankly, are totally insane.

Along with Dean Baker and a few others, I’ve been fighting a lonely crusade against those who insist that TARP “made money.” In a new report, the GAO faults Treasury for constantly shifting the goalposts on how they report that “profit” from TARP. It’s a slightly different argument, but one that highlights how this illusion of a successful TARP lies in manipulation of the numbers.

If European banks need $154 billion in cash to meet new capital requirements and backstop losses on sovereign debt, and investors are unlikely to be a source for raising cash, then banks really have nowhere else to turn except their national governments. And that may get problematic in a hurry.

The 17 countries of the Eurozone formally backed a new deal for fiscal management, one designed to “save the euro” but which can only help if a host of other measures fall into place, including any plan to actually boost growth on the southern periphery.

The new plan to save Europe includes a condition that, says Felix Salmon, private bondholders cannot take losses on any future eurozone bail-outs. This is merely an invitation for recklessness by the bondholders, with a giant safety net put under them by Europe.

We have a better sense of the situation in Europe, or at least the game being played by Angela Merkel and the European Central Bank, in tandem. Merkel and the ECB, before acquiescing to any scheme involving Eurobonds or running the printing presses, want to tighten fiscal integration among Eurozone countries, with the attendant loss of national sovereignty and real penalties for breaking fiscal guidelines.