Germany's Carthaginian terms for Greece

[T_i_B]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9077586/Germanys-Carthaginian-terms-for-Greece.html

The EU deal will in theory cap Greece’s public debt at 120pc of GDP in 2020 - at the outer limit if viability - after eight years of belt-tightening and depression, if all goes perfectly.

Since nothing has gone to plan since Europe’s austerity police began to administer shock therapy eighteen months ago, even this grim promise seems too hopeful.

The Greek economy was expected to contract by 3pc in 2011 under the original EU-IMF plan. In fact it shrank by 6pc, and is now entering what the IMF fears could become “a downward spiral of fiscal austerity, falling disposable incomes, and depressed sentiment.”

Manufacturing output fell 15.5pc in December. The M3 money supply crashed at a 15.9pc rate. Unemployment jumped to 20.9pc in November, up from 18.2pc the month before, and is already above the worse-case peak pencilled in by the EU & IMF. Some 60,000 small firms and family businesses have gone bankrupt since the summer, the chief reason why VAT revenues dropped 18.7pc in January. The violence of the slump is overwhelming the effects of fiscal retrenchment. So much Sisyphean effort for so little gain.

[aquart]

1. Or they could tax the rich and end the tax cheat culture in Greece.

Whatever.

[T_i_B]

2. Are there any rich Greeks who've still got money in Greece?

It seems that the rich have been quite keen of late to get their money out of Greece.

No doubt however, that widescale tax evasion is a major factor behind this crisis.