It’s remarkable to me, the degree to which reporting on the continuing Greek crisis is sympathetic to the Greek government, whose intention is to continue stiffing its creditors, and hostile to the “hardline” states (such oppressors as Germany, Finland, Slovakia, and Slovenia), who want to obtain some assurances that if they increase their subsidies to spendthrift Greece, the Greek government won’t continue to lie to them.
The extent of the lying is indicated by a stray passage of pro-Greek rhetoric appearing in the Washington Post on Sunday:
Some [creditors’] requirements encompass such dramatic social and political reforms — such as ending government cronyism and safeguarding the integrity of economic statistics — that it’s unclear when or even if they could ever be achieved.
“We don’t agree on many points,” a member of the Greek delegation said as negotiations dragged on. “It’s problematic.”
Interesting. It’s dramatic to want accurate economic statistics. How could this ever be achieved? And notice the Orwellian synonym for ending deceit: “safeguarding the integrity of economic statistics.”
In the same report, we learn that Greece is experiencing “the deepest recession of any developed nation since World War II.” I guess the total wipeout of the central European economies in the late 1940s didn’t hold a candle to the torture now experienced by bankrupt Greece. I guess that communist Europe was doing swell, compared with contemporary Greece. I guess that Franco’s Spain was sitting pretty, compared with poor little Greece.
Is there anyone who believes this stuff? I don’t know. “It’s problematic.”
