According to a draft of the report that members of the troika who visited Greece are working on, they are going to recommend that the next round of funding be released to Greek as soon as possible to avoid any further problems. It has been pretty clear based on the comments that have been released over the last few weeks and days that this was going to be the case, but hopefully getting it in writing will make more of a statement.

The troika has made it clear that they are not happy with the progress that is being made and that the actual downturn is actually worse than they expected, but they realize that aid must be delivered as soon as possible to avoid any future problems. In an ideal situation, the bailout funding would be held until the Greek government showed signs of making improvements, but that isn’t really realistic – they need this money to avoid defaulting.

Considering that Greece just passed another round of austerity measures and is pretty much doing everything that has been asked of them in terms of changing legislation, there really shouldn’t be any reason why they don’t get the money they are waiting for. To withhold it now and allow them to fall further would render all the previous efforts over the past few months a total waste.

 

The US Isn’t Doing That Bad, According To Some 

If you have any knowledge of the financial and economic situation in the US, you probably think that things are pretty bad. High unemployment, a very high deficit, and political stagnation that probably won’t stop until the 2012 election. But, if you look at the situation in an objective manner, you will see that the US isn’t in that bad shape after all.

There seems to be an ingrained negative sentiment in the US markets right now – everyone paints every new economic data release as negative and thinks things are always getting worse. But, if you look at the situation over the last few months, the downturn seems to be slowing down, and in some areas, there is actually some improvement.

Some of this negativity can also be blamed on the administration – they are trying to paint a really bad picture right now to make it clear to citizens that change is needed. But, when you compare the US situation to somewhere like Greece, you will see that the US actually has it pretty good and things aren’t as bad as everyone makes them out to be.

In the end, it may be time for a little optimism – peoples attitudes are not reflecting reality.