IMF admits: we failed to realise the damage austerity would do to Greece

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

The International Monetary Fund admitted it had failed to realise the damage austerity would do to Greece as the Washington-based organisation catalogued mistakes made during the bailout of the stricken eurozone country.

In an assessment of the rescue conducted jointly with the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European commission, the IMF said it had been forced to override its normal rules for providing financial assistance in order to put money into Greece.

Fund officials had severe doubts about whether Greece's debt would be sustainable even after the first bailout was provided in May 2010 and only agreed to the plan because of fears of contagion.

While it succeeded in keeping Greece in the eurozone, the report admitted the bailout included notable failures.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jun/05/imf-underestimated-damage-austerity-would-do-to-greece

[MNBrewer]

1. NO ONE COULD POSSIBLY HAVE PREDICTED!

[zbdent]

7. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

wait ... um ...

[midnight]

10. My exact thought when reading the title of this post....

[annabanana]

22. bingo!. . . n/t

[hobbit709]

2. They knew

But as long as the 1%ers get their money, that's all that matters.

[TexasTowelie]

3. Doh!

[The Wielding Truth]

9. I see your Doh and raise you " a slap on the forehead"!

[Harmony Blue]

4. They knew from the start

they just didn't want the 1% to take another hair cut.

[KansDem]

5. From 2012: "Suicides in Greece rise by a third as financial crisis takes its toll"

More than 2,500 people have taken their own lives since 2010.

'This is the number for confirmed suicides. We think the real number is much higher,' said psychiatrist Dimitris Boukouras. He mans a psyhiatric hotline that rings off the hook every day.

Greece, which is headed for an autumn bankruptcy unless it does more to reign in spending and release fresh IMF funds worth 40 billion euros, saw 50 deaths and a further 350 suicide attempts in the capital Athens in June alone. Deaths are rising across the country and on the numerous islands that surround Greece.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will next week hold his first meetings with euro zone leaders since taking office, striving to assure them he will honour a pledge for more austerity and gauging whether they could grant him more time to pull it off.

Mr Samaras will insist he can ram through an austerity package worth about 11.5 billion euros ($14.2 billion) - a key condition to continue receiving EU/IMF bailout funds and avoid default and a possible exit from the currency club.
Greece has yet to nail down the requested austerity package.

The bulk of the cuts will come from state salaries and pensions, and up to 40,000 public sector firings, further angering an austerity-weary public that often takes to the streets. The coalition's two leftist junior partners have also opposed any further cuts.

Mr Samaras said: 'We're all having a difficult time. There will be more hardship'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2188879/Greek-economy-Suicides-rise-financial-crisis-takes-toll.html

[Harmony Blue]

6. Most people are going to move back to their villages

and the refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq are starting to go back to their countries as Athens has nothing to offer for Greek citizens and non Greek citizens. Big city life isn't effective for most Greeks living in Athens. Cities in southern Greece like Tripoli, Sparti, and Megalopi, and Patra are doing better though, but they do have their hardships there as well. But there are a lot of villages surrounding these cities where people could escape to. Lots of fields to be harvested if a little work is put into them (olive trees, oranges, grapes, strawberries, lemons, applies, figs, apricots, etc.).

[AdHocSolver]

8. Austerity is the process of applying leeches to a bleeding wound. nt

[Snarkoleptic]

11. Austerity is the processs of compromising the host to ensure the parasites survive.

[Laelth]

25. +1 n/t

-Laelth

[The Magistrate]

26. That, Sir, Is Worth Quoting

Well done.

[dlwickham]

27. don't leeches have something in their saliva that closes wounds

[sakabatou]

12. You don't say!

[WillyT]

13. HUGE K & R !!!

[MrModerate]

14. No shit, Sherlock(s) . . .

But the IMF has been pursuing austerity approaches for as long an I can remember. And they never seem to work out very well. This was just a very large example of a dysfunctional policy that is baked into the IMF's genes.

[xtraxritical]

23. The IMF's game all along has been to bankrupt countries so that corporations could buy

the government assets at fire sale prices, "privatization".

[OnyxCollie]

15. Whoops!

Sorry!

[ReRe]

16. Fuck the IMF...

... Have they done anything good since their creation? Strangely, I have never heard any debt stricken austere country singing their praises. I think they ought to take that one-way trip to Mars.

[BootinUp]

17. They were invaded by right wing ideologists apparently. nt

[RainDog]

18. k&r n/t

[jwirr]

19. They have no excuse. They have been playing the disaster capital game since it began in South

America in the 50s. They have helped in the destruction of too many economies to be able to claim ignorance.

[idwiyo]

20. K&R

[Doctor_J]

21. COUbullshitGH

They knew exactly what would happen. they didn't know the rabble would get ugly. Now they're implementing it here because the American proletariat are a herd of submissive, brainwashed sheeple.

[Orsino]

24. The damage austerity ALWAYS does?

What they failed to do is to study economics, and to use such expertise in formulating policy.

Wanna bet their next conclusion is that more austerity is needed?

[Cal Carpenter]

28. Oh bullshit. Fuck the IMF and its apologists.