Intervenções no blogue 'The Lisboners' (VI)

Sugiro a leitura deste artigo e dos comentários (que incluem intervenções minhas).

Abaixo fica o primeiro comentário, que é um comentário directamente ao artigo:

«How is it rational to treat Greece as if they were simply caught up in a bad situation that had nothing to do with them when that simply isn’t true? The Greek economy relied excessively and unsustainably on debt, as did the Greek State, egged on by misapplied and overly optimistic ratings (though few complained about those as they do about less stirling ratings). It did so to fund an uncompetitive economy and an overblown State.

Greece should be restructuring its economic structure, though it’s not been easy to actually implement structural reforms, to put it mildly. Of course they’re not popular. But governing isn’t simply about doing what’s popular. It’s about doing what one thinks is best, and then, in a democracy, be judged for it at the polls.

Finally, even if Greece were actually implementing reforms more steadily, you can’t expect results from structural changes in the short-term. There is an adjustment period. It’s painful, but it’s there, and it needs to be managed.

We can’t keep looking at the short-term. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place. We can’t solve structural problems, as they are in Greece and in Portugal, by throwing money at them, as that’ll only cause inflation and make those problems worse.

And, as a federalist, I would hope we’d take the time to discuss the European Union properly, but it seems it’ll be hard for that to happen.»