Hard Choices in Greece

Writing in The Weekly Standard, Irwin M. Stelzer looks at the problem in Greece. An excerpt:

Greece, eager to trade its drachma for the euro so that it could borrow at the lower interest rates that membership would make available, readily agreed to the 3 percent limit on its deficit, was inducted into the exclusive euro club—and then went on a borrowing spree concealed by a variety of accounting tricks and some outright economizing with the truth. With the help of Goldman Sachs and other banks, Greece engaged in exotic financial transactions and also sold future income streams such as revenues anticipated from landing fees at its airports for current cash, and then concealed the liabilities with a variety of off-the-balance-sheet devices that Goldman now admits were insufficiently transparent. (At one point the Greek government considered selling off future revenues from the sale of admission tickets to the Acropolis, but it finally decided that headlines like “Greece Sells the Acropolis” might attract unwanted attention to its financial shenanigans.)