Greece goes back into depression – having never left it

Last Friday (March 6, 2015), Eurostat unveiled the latest – National Accounts estimates for the fourth-quarter 2014. All the Greek news this week will be about the – Letter – that the Greek Finance Minister sent to the president of the Eurogroup, in which he outlined 7 reform proposals. But it should be firmly focused on the fact that the Greek economy is back into depression having recorded two successive quarters of negative real GDP growth (despite the September-quarter data suggesting otherwise). The latest National Accounts data for Greece shows it contracted in the December-quarter 2012 significantly and the accompanying Labour Force data confirms that the unemployment rate is rising again and participation is falling. That is the disaster that the Eurogroup should be addressing. While they claim that internal devaluation will spawn growth through a burgeoning exports sector, the December-quarter 2014 data shows that exports contracted over the last three months of 2014. How long do the Greek people have to wait before the trade-led recovery nonsense is consigned to the nonsense bin?

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