Essay For a Topic

GREECE’S DEBT CRISIS/ THE STREETS OF ATHENS (CIA4U)

1. First, Greece’s moribund economy is hopelessly uncompetitive. Since membership of the euro rules out the fillip of a cheaper currency, the country’s only route to growth is through deep reforms that slash costs and boost productivity. Second, the government is bust. Despite the austerity of the past year, introduced as part of Greece’s first rescue package, its primary budget is still deeply in deficit.
2. The new rescue plan makes progress on the former (lack of competitiveness), but does little on the latter.
3. As a result, even if the Greeks do everything that is asked of them, another crisis will loom before long. Dealing decisively with the Greek mess means addressing both the lack of competitiveness and the insolvency.
4. Under pressure, Greece’s government has cut spending and raised taxes worth some 7% of GDP. It has taken an axe to the country’s absurdly generous pension system and started to free up the economy, for instance by easing entry into some 150 restricted professions. 
5. In return for more outside help, Greece’s government has agreed to more fiscal austerity and yet bolder reforms, including privatization. By 2015 it plans to rise €50 billion from selling government-owned land and stakes in firms, especially in infrastructure and utilities.
6. It would be far better to recognize reality and start an orderly restructuring of Greek debt now. That remains the only solution. Greece’s alleged rescuers would do well to remember that if you kick a can down the road for long enough, it dents and eventually breaks.
7. Greece is teetering on the edge. It is bankrupt. Worse, the austerity measures and reforms that Mr. Papandreou has pushed through are not visibly making anything better. The markets are growing more alarmed about the risk of Greece defaulting on its mountainous debt.
8. In return he promises even more belt-tightening, structural reform and the breakneck privatization of...