Paul Krugman writes about last week's last-minute deal to
avert a calamity in the Greek debt crisis:
Now that the dust has settled a bit, we can look calmly at the deal — if it really is a deal that survives through tomorrow, which some people doubt. And it’s increasingly clear that Greece came out in significantly better shape, at least for now.
The main action, always, involves the Greek primary surplus — how much more will they need to raise in revenue than they can spend on things other than interest? The question these past few days would be whether the Greeks would be forced into agreeing to aim for very high primary surpluses under the threat of being pushed into immediate crisis. And they weren’t.
He further points out that, contrary to the environment several years ago when the austerians
=cough= mostly Frau Merkel's Germany =cough= were in the ascendance, the Greeks were given some breathing room -- for at least 4 months -- and avoided a credit cutoff.
