Greek unemployment rate hits record high

Bad economic news out of Greece, which should dampen the claims that the country has put the worst of its financial crisis behind it.

Now this is from the Guardian. The outrageous spin of the Greek Samaras – Stournaras regime that insisted (and insists?) that the worst of the crisis is behind us! was never believed within Greece of course and has now become painfully obvious as arrant nonsense for everyone else too.

Of course it is very hard to believe that anyone else did believe it either. The likes of Olli Rehn, Wolfgang Schauble and all the rest of the merry band pretend to believe some of this out of expediency and nothing else. Euro elections looming, banking union idea being neutralised, uncertainty over Greek debt which is quite obviously not sustainable…. but go tell that to your electors…

Now the Samaras – Stournaras regime, in fear of being routed at the Euro elections has come up with the following outrageous spin. The primary surplus!!!! It keeps going up from 500 million Euro to 800 mil up to the billions now from 1.5 to 3 something. In the end the primary surplus will be so high we will pay off all debt in a couple of years. If they are to be believed.

The other piece of spin is that Oh! What memorandum? We are exiting it this year! Oh yes? And just what does that mean? Nothing. Austerity will remain and we are being threatened by Herr Schauble with ANOTHER loan with even worse strings attached which will in his warped logic reduce Greek indebtedness?

So what will we be “out of”? Nothing. Just pushed further and further in.

Of course since all this spin is based on the outrageous to criminal taxation, it is doomed to explode in their faces. There are serious indications that revenue from taxation, the budgeted amount, will collapse his year. It is after all, nothing more than a figment of Stournaras’ rather limited imagination.