Troika moves into Greece in a few days to 'look through the books' and the deficit could be possibly over 10% (9% was the limit set).
If that's the case, if Greece wants it's E5 billion in March it's got to slice to the bone which means thousands of public servants will be fired plus sundry other deep cuts on spending.
If the tax collectors won't collect the new taxes then the government will cut expenditure, like tax collectors' jobs.
Seems fair, no?
Then there's the E17 billion in debt to be rolled over next month. The troika will approve that but this is the one where the bond holders get the haircut of 50% but no more than 60% with a coupon rate of 5%.
This is not a default, you understand.
And when the troika leave Greece knows it'll get a short reprieve. The politicians know the rules of the game now.
And then the minium wage has to be reduced from E750 pw (France is ~E1,400). The list of events goes on and on.
But Greece survives from month to month and if one tiny screw falls out of the Greeced machine then all hell will break loose.
One little itsy bitsy screw.
There's so much confidence in the EZ that the zone will stay in one piece this year that there's 13.3billion Deutschmarks still unaccounted for. Perhaps the German population don't have the same level of faith as their politicians and have kept back some 'real money' is case the euro gurgles down the plug hole.
