Agora
Posts in Economy
Honey, I shrunk the Greeks
The IMF without any hesitation admits that the main beneficiary of that May 2010 so called Greek bailout was not Greece itself but the eurozone as it gave the opportunity to French and German banks to get paid in full and unload their large exposure to Greek debt from their books on the official sector and European taxpayers.
Contributor: Yiannis Mouzakis
Categories: Europe (282), Economy (331), Greece (498)
Taking a macro snapshot
Could it be possible that consumed by the crisis we are missing the turn of events and the small signs of improvement that start emerging though unnoticed? Is the good news simply lost as the crisis tests the Greek social fabric?
Contributor: Yiannis Mouzakis
Categories: Economy (331), Greece (498)
Cyprus “success” preludes something bigger in European banking
At first, it looked anything but successful. Both Brussels and Nicosia seemed hopeless, had shot themselves in their feet, steamrollered over taboos, destabilised capital flows - created a mega blunder. Yet the Cyprus Gaffe (or Cyprus Rehearsal, or Cyprus Scare) is successful in having produced one sure effect: To make you sweat and scale down your accounts to less than 100K, then run to find the most secure refuge possible for your (depreciating) savings.
Contributor: Ilias Siakantaris
Categories: Europe (282), Economy (331)
An issue of statistical significance in Greece
The head of Greece’s statistics agency, Andreas Georgiou, is to face a criminal inquiry. An ex-employee of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), Zoe Georganta, has accused him of colluding with the European Union’s statistical arm, Eurostat, to inflate Greece’s deficit figure for 2009, thereby justifying Greece’s EU-IMF bailout, signed in May 2010, and its drastic austerity measures. Georgiou vehemently denies the charges.
Contributors: Nick Malkoutzis, Yiannis Mouzakis
Categories: Economy (331), Greece (498)
Greece's labour market is austerity's biggest casualty
Greece has the potential to attain by 2020 a GDP in the region of 330 billion euros and a place in the G20, wrote the editor of a popular weekly newspaper in Greece over the weekend. This would require Greece to miraculously add 150 billion euros to its economy by the end of the decade at the same time as the 20th economy in the G20 experiences a depression similar to the one Greece has gone through in recent years. Leaving this unlikely scenario aside, the tone of the editorial captures the efforts during the festive period to change the narrative of the country’s future prospects.
Contributor: Yiannis Mouzakis
Categories: Economy (331), Greece (498)