While it looks to some like Greece just won't take its bitter medicine and accept deep austerity measures proposed by its eurozone partners, others say more austerity is essentially political theater. Dimitiri Papadimitriou, the head of the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, says the European Central Bank, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund cannot realistically expect them to be implemented. And the Daily Pulse is down a beat today on news that Americans are less enthusiastic about spending their hard-earned cash than we were a month ago. With gas prices up and wages flat, it's no surprise that today's consumer-sentiment index was down.