Rating agencies mistaken

Greece's creditworthiness continued to sink yesterday when the leading agency Standart & Poor's (S&P) lowered their rating after a similar move by Fitch, on the grounds that measures undertaken by the Greek government are insufficient. The left-liberal daily To Vima disagrees with the decision: "The rating agencies would like to see the government freeze or sink wages. They call this an appropriate measure, without even considering the peculiarities of the Greek economy. Dogmatic as they are, they defend their belief like theologians and refuse to be at all flexible. ... But Greece is not what they think it is. The country has a huge supply of untaxed property, which could supply a large source of tax revenue. In addition the state is also immeasurably rich. ... The president of Piraeus Bank, Michalis Sallas, wrote last Sunday that the public sector is sitting on 240 billion euros worth of real estate. Taking account of this, S&P's demands are clearly met. All Greece needs is time."

» full article (external link, Greek)
More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » Greece
All available articles from » Antonis Karakousis

» To the complete press review of Thursday, December 17, 2009