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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Post-Crash Index-Moderated
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From: Mike Johnston10/19/2011 10:35:57 AM
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Not only banks but whole countries engage in massive fraud.

This won't end until hundreds of millions of people hit the streets with pitchforks.

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Portugal - Fiddler Paid, Music Stops

In May, shortly before receiving a EUR 78bn bailout, the Portuguese government trumpeted encouraging snippets regarding the state of the economy. “Fiscal revenues up 16.8% y/y in April” (May 20th). “January-through-April central government deficit EUR 1.55bn, 2.28bn less than a year ago” (5/20).

The new government announced “to set an example of cutting spending in administration” and intended “to surprise, go beyond bailout terms” (Coelho 6/6). The good news continued: “Central government deficit for the first five months of 2011 cut to 1.03bn”; “State spending fell 7.2%, revenues rose 6.9% in the period January through May” (June 20th).

With all those feel-good reports it was only fair for the EU’s Troika report on Portugal to be “very positive” (Baroso, June 23rd). The EFSF disbursed its funds to Portugal on June 29th. However, as anybody who has ever visited a Hungarian coffee house can confirm, as soon as you pay the fiddler, the music stops. After six months, “there was a shortfall of 1.1% of GDP in budget” (Finance Minister, August 12th). Wait a minute. According to the INE (Instituto Nacional de Estatistica) the budget deficit for H1 2011 amounted to 8.4% of GDP or roughly EUR 6.7bn. So we went from 1bn at the end of May to 6.7bn mere four weeks later?

zerohedge.com
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