Little hope six months after bailouts

It is just a few days over six months since Greece concluded its exit from the despised memorandums and the economic situation remains essentially unchanged. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. Instead there is another narrow tunnel, with continued budgetary surpluses, heavy taxation that takes the life out of private initiative, and a banking system weighed down by massive amounts of nonperforming loans, resulting in small income gains and continued massive unemployment.

The recent European Commission report was depressing in two ways. First, because it gave a detailed account of the government's weakening commitment to reform: While 13 of the 16 end-of-2018 specific commitments were met, the main achievement was the 3.5 percent budgetary surplus - the straitjacket that has been forced on Greece by its creditors so that it can continue to maintain service on its...

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