Wall Street Journal
September 12, 2011
Germany has been a rich source of saber rattling over Greece, much of it for domestic political consumption.
In the end, Germany will have to give in and let Greece have its September bailout installment, giving Athens until the next tranche in December to see if its new taxes can work off a dangerously widening budget deficit.
Senior IMF officials now acknowledge as much, sympathizing with the headwinds Greeks face with their economic recession. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate, with crumbling European credit markets in recent days giving only a pale hint of what a Greek default would wreak.
So Greece has responded to threats from directions north with a new plan to raise EUR2 billion with extra property taxes.
More new taxes in Greece? That makes it just as likely that we will be here again in December, with a deepening recession, more missed budget targets, more agonizing over bad choices and more concessions.
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