What's really happening in Greece?

Well, It’s Draghi-day today. According to expectations, he will announce that countries like Greece will have to stick to the deals. But can they?

A. The Greece current account is improving by leaps and bounds
B. But despite this, unemployment is still increasing with leaps and bounds, too (7%-points in one year… That’s one in fourteen people, in one year)).
C. And they have already done more than their fair share of belt-tightening (actually much more than the Irish, this darling of the right…), see graph 1.

The question is of course: “can a country where unemployment is increasing by leaps and bounds and where retail sales have been declining with 10% a year for several years in a stretch be expected to cut the government deficit even faster (as fast as the Baltic states, darlings of the right…) than it is already doing?”. No, of course. But you can of course use the situation to force such a country to suspend the (control of the) rule of law when it comes to labour….

Meta: ‘retail sales’ is not equal to ‘total consumption’, which also includes water, electricity and housing. It does include internet sales, however.

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