Friday, May 07, 2010

Bass Ackwards Redux

I have been claiming that Greece is not ruining the Euro, but that the Euro ruined Greece. Now, compulsive tweeter Felix Salmon provides a provocative tidbit in support of this thesis:

"Greece had a primary budget surplus for every year from 1992 to 2000"

In other words, joining the Euro somehow got lenders to believe that Greece was no longer Greece.

People, they (the lenders) deserve whatever haircut they end up getting.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not an either or situation. The EU has fairly strict fiscal requirements for entry. It's likely Greece was just being on it's best behaviour in order to qualify for monetary union.

Anonymous said...

Or it was cooking the books to get in.

Angus said...

Right, but then, once in, foreign banks seemed to think that Greece was no longer Greece and re-opened the cheap credit spigot.