Greece’s Revenue Falls. Uh, Oh.

Wall Street Journal
September 10, 2010

Greece has, so far, made strong progress this year cutting its massive government budget deficit.

But there is a worrying sign in new data, out today, for August: The state’s revenue is falling. And its spending is rising.

You wouldn’t know it from the government’s press release, which cits a 3.3% increase in ordinary budget revenue for the January - August period, against the same eight months last year. That gain, however, comes entirely from the first seven months of the year. A bit of subtraction shows that revenue in August 2010 was below the figure from August 2009.

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