Greece: 11 Lost Years, and Counting

As we see Greece rejoicing the win of a party that says they should renegotiate Euro debt, let’s see how their economy has done.

(Data from ECB)

They’ve seen their GDP go down to levels last seen in Dec 2003, which is about 11 years ago now. The GDP may have finally seen a quarterly uptick in Sep 2014, but that’s little consolation after all the dramatic falling it has done.

It’s really no wonder that Greece seeks any way out, even if they defaulted on European Debt or moved away from the Euro. The consequences may be dire, but if they are required to continue with their austerity measures, it’s unlikely they get out of this mess anytime soon. It’s a little incongruent for the ECB to say it will use whatever it can, including buying toilet paper worthy assets, to pump money into the economy, but will refuse to allow the Greek government to do the same thing. This, as the Greeks see it, is a bailout of European banks (who get all the money the ECB is printing) but not of European economies.

11 lost years is not something we can even begin to understand. To you in India, imagine the salaries of 2003, the house prices of 2003 and then, the GDP about 1/4th of what it is today. That’s what our economy was back then.

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