In Greek mythology Hercules was set 12 impossible labors by the Goddess Hera, journalists have been set one impossible task by the Greek government: trying to summarize what is happening in the Greek debt crisis.

Late last night, following a marathon meeting (sorry, those Greek allusions can't be avoided) Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and the leaders of the three political parties in the country's coalition government agreed to a package of further austerity measures meant to insure Greece gets another bail-out from the EU. The bail-out is worth 130 billion euros ($ 171.4 billion).

The country's Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos set off for Brussels to meet with his euro zone counterparts to present the plan and presumably get their approval.

He didn't get far on his journey before the plan came under attack both inside Greece and outside.

One of the political leaders in the room when the deal was agreed, Georgios Karatzaferis of LAOS, said he would not vote for it.

The Greek newspaper eKathimerini quotes the LAOS leader saying, "The creditors are asking for 40 years of submission. Greece will not give itself up." Karatzaferis added, "Greece can survive outside the EU but cannot survive under a German boot."

EU leaders met in Brussels yesterday. By their standards things went well. Contentious pre-summit issues were kicked aside - in this case, Germany did not push for the right to install a budget czar in Greece. Agreement was reached on a new fiscal compact for the euro zone, although the details of what was agreed were left for later. A lot of money was pledged, enough to make a person wonder where it will come from given how indebted many European governments are.

In Portugal the numbers are all bad:

The deficit is 9.1 percent of GDP. The economy is expected to contract by anywhere between 3.1 and 5 percent this year. It took a bailout from the EU, ECB, IMF "troika" of 78 billion euros ($102.6 billion) and will have a hard time paying it back because its credit rating is now "junk." Five year bond yields yesterday broke a record: 18.9 percent. Three year bond yields hit 21 percent.

Oh, and unemployment stands at a record 13.2 percent.