Comments on: Why We All Need To Keep A Watchful Eye On What Is Happening In Greece

By: National Governments, the IMF, and Blame — Can Sar

National Governments, the IMF, and Blame — Can Sar — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:27:08 +0000

[...] was just reading a little bit about the Greek Economy and wanted to highlight the following observation about the IMF that ends up giving it a bad name [...]

By: rotos

rotos — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:17:28 +0000

OK, all very well put, but what do you predict will come out of this? Devaluation isn’t an option. It’s also a given that the government isn’t willing (or capable) to act on its own. Could it be strict measures imposed by a IMF loan like in Hungary? An EU intervention to enforce the EMU stability and growth pact? Something else completely unprecedented?

By: JLS

JLS — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:28:19 +0000

Anyway as Ronald Reagan says “Deficit doesn’t matters”.

By: Doug M.

Doug M. — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 09:09:02 +0000

I agree. You can’t separate out the political and social aspects. A different government stuck with the same economy could have responded differently. This one is timid, none too competent and very corrupt; the potential replacements may be more energetic, but are unlikely to be more competent or cleaner.

Doug M.

By: Scot

Scot — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:53:51 +0000

Part of the problem is that the government itself does not give a good example of being serious. Seriously, you cannot ask people to make sacrifices for the common good and at the same time give a tremendous raise to the least efficient and best paid public servants who have absolutely no responsibility for their actions, i.e. judges. Or in the recent dealings with the church. Or privatizing very profitable public sector businesses; I mean if the government considers itself unfit to run essentially a monopoly telco, what exactly should give people any confidence it is capable of running an entire country? Same thing about protecting public and private property in the view of the recent events. So it looks like this is primarily a government failure.

By: By The Fault » Blog Archive » Greece: “A Civil War That Never Ends”

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:40:41 +0000

[...] We All Need To Keep A Watchful Eye On What Is Happening In Greece By Edward Hugh in Fistful of Euros. In view of Greece’s EMU membership, the availability of external financing is not a concern, but [...]

By: By The Fault » Blog Archive » Greece: “A Civil War That Never Ends”

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:40:41 +0000