8/27/2012

Germany turns down Greece's request for 2.5 more years before they cut spending, there is a continual history of delays

Germany's patience is running thin on waiting for Greece to finally make their promised budget cuts. 
Germany’s economy minister has rejected calls for Greece to get more time to implement economic reforms, saying in an interview Sunday that Athens needs to respect the bailout deal reached with its international creditors. 
Philipp Roesler’s comments to ZDF public television come after a visit by Greece’s prime minister to Berlin on Friday, during which Antonis Samaras told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that his country needs ‘‘time to breathe’’ before it can make all the budget cuts and reforms demanded as part of its €240 billion ($300 billion) bailout packages. 
‘‘What the Greeks have asked for, half a year or two years, that’s not doable,’’ said Roesler, who is also the vice chancellor in Angela Merkel’s coalition government. He added that ‘‘time is always money’’ and all parties had agreed that additional funds for Greece weren’t up for debate. . . .
Remember this from last October?
Greece will miss a deficit target set just months ago in a massive bailout package, according to government draft budget figures released on Sunday . . . . 
If you need a reminder about what happened after the 2010 bailout, you can read about it here
Despite Greece's promisesgovernment spending is up over last year's already bloated levels, the deficit is bigger than ever, and it has utterly failed to meet the promised sell-off of some government assets.Not a single public bureaucrat has been laid off so far. . . .
The very high interest rates on Greek bonds -- 17 percent -- imply that lenders are highly certain that Greece will default long before their 10 year bonds are paid off. . . .
Well, that was in June 2011.  Now the Greek 10 year bond interest rate is 24%.


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