From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Greece’s Great Economic Comeback   
   By The Editorial Board, Oct. 23, 2023, WSJ   
   Talk about an economic comeback story. Less than a decade ago, Greece looked   
   like it might never recover from its economic and political traumas. On Friday   
   it won back an investment-grade credit rating from Standard & Poor’s.   
      
   The upgrade on Greek debt achieves a goal set by Prime Minister Kyriakos   
   Mitsotakis, although it also sells short the scale of the transformation Mr.   
   Mitsotakis has brought about in Athens. S&P Global cited “significant   
   budgetary consolidation” and    
   the summer’s electoral “mandate for policy continuity” to explain its   
   decision—which, as so often with credit ratings, arrives behind the curve   
   and for the wrong reasons.   
      
   Athens needed to get spending under control after the fiscal excesses of the   
   early 2000s culminated in a debt crisis starting in 2009. But if a balanced   
   budget were all the country required to be deemed investable, a credit upgrade   
   would have happened by    
   now. Greece agreed to three separate bailouts from its European peers between   
   2010 and 2015, all of which included punishing fiscal conditions.   
      
   Those conditions were never met because neither the bailout deals nor Greek   
   politicians implemented a growth agenda. Voters grew exasperated with the   
   first two bailouts-to-nowhere and in 2015 swung to the far left, electing   
   Alexis Tsipras of the Syriza    
   Party as Prime Minister.   
      
   Mr. Tsipras nearly blew up the eurozone, refusing to honor bailout conditions   
   and going so far as to stage a botched referendum on euro membership before   
   stepping back from the brink. Then he signed a bailout deal with its own   
   fiscal strictures.   
      
   Mr. Mitsotakis’s innovation, since ousting Mr. Tsipras and bringing the   
   center-right New Democracy party back to power in 2019, has been to focus on   
   economic growth. He cut the corporate tax rate to 22% from 29%, has worked to   
   rationalize government    
   operations, and now is pushing ahead with privatizations.   
      
   The renewed optimism explains why the economy is expected to grow this year by   
   about 2.5%, S&P expects government debt will fall to 146% of GDP from 189% in   
   2020, and investment is pouring in. All of this happened despite the pandemic,   
   a migration crisis    
   and several natural disasters. It also explains why Mr. Mitsotakis won   
   re-election handily this summer.   
      
   Challenges remain for an economy that still is too dependent on a handful of   
   industries such as tourism, and important regulatory reforms are needed to   
   increase dynamism. But Mr. Mitsotakis has figured out that an economic growth   
   agenda is the essential    
   ingredient for building support for those reforms—and for balancing the   
   books. That’s a lesson the rest of Europe—and America—could learn from   
   the Continent’s former problem child.   
      
   https://www.wsj.com/articles/greeces-great-economic-comeback-144c1a6c   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)