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Greece and the euro: The abuses of austerity

Economist Original article ›

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The Wall Street Journal in a recent editorial called the European Union's June 2011 plan for Greece "the French Deception," because it favored French and German banks but made Greece's debt burden even less manageable. The Economist views the European Union actions with disdain and says they are sure to fail. It is skeptical whether the spending cuts will work because Greece's politicians are not likely to address the problems of poor tax and other payments collection, and is too interconnected with favored groups and lobbies to be able to take the needed actions. And spending cuts will fall hard on ordinary Greeks. Even with job cuts the sense is that it will fall not on full time civil servants with permanent contracts but people with temporary contracts. The Economist cites the example of items such as the overgenerous markup allowed for pharmacists that adds another 1.5 billion euros to the budget which will remain untouched as an example of many such items where the cuts will not fall because of strong lobbies and favored interests. The privatization scheme is deemed unrealistic because it expects to raise 51 billion euros in a crash sale of assets, which only makes it more likely that assets could fall into the hands of cronies with the right connections. The current efforts only make ordinary Greeks worse off with spending cuts and new taxes. The negative impact on economic growth of the austerity cuts creates the prospect for a deeper recession, political turmoil, and a debt default.

A Brady Plan type solution for the debt crises in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and other EU countries.

05/18/2010

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The EU's decision to adopt the French Banking Federation's plan that would double the cost of servicing Greece's debt will only make matters worse. This means increasing interest rates from 4-6% currently to 10% under 2% Greek economic growth, and makes debt servicing untenable. The adoption of similiar plans in the case of Mexico and Argentina in 2001, ended in failure a year after they were adopted, with private creditors taking losses. Financial markets see this with interest rates on Greek debt at 26%. Contagion might turn out to be worse as the situation deteriorates further.

Grouped Articles

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Nothing to be proud of, says the Journal in its editorial on Feb. 29, 2012. For Greece the terms leave no hope for a return to growth, and that the two political parties in Greece were required to pledge their support for austerity measures against overwhelming public opposition in Athens says little for democracy. It would have been better for Greece to go into a planned default 2 years ago with steeper haircuts for European banks and reducing Greece's debt to a manageable level lower than the over 120% of GDP in 2020 of the March 2012 bailout plan, says the Journal.

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Greece and the euro: The abuses of austerity

Economist 07/02/2011


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