Word: imf
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...help Greece deal with its mountain of debt over the past few months has done little to assuage those fears. So despite the news Sunday, April 11, of a European bailout-loan offer worth some $40 billion, with the possibility of $20 billion more from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Greeks are growing increasingly pessimistic about their future. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...
...Many Greeks are worried that European countries or the IMF will place harsh conditions on any bailout money and force already struggling Greece to endure more austerity measures. The country has already passed two rounds of such measures in recent months, leading to violent protests by hooded youths in Athens...
...view has been bolstered over recent weeks with the world's three biggest credit-rating agencies raising concerns that the scale of debt puts Britain at significant risk of default. That might seem to raise the mortifying prospect of another British Prime Minister going cap in hand to the IMF. Ironically, the IMF backs Labour's more cautious approach to deficit reduction, warning in February that stimulus packages needed to be maintained "well into 2010 for a majority of the world's economies." (See pictures of the City of London...
...Like a true card shark, Merkel seems prepared to call Papandreou's bluff. The Greek leader had counted on the E.U. to collectively recoil in horror at the idea of his country's going to the IMF, but Merkel is effectively daring him to do it. Speaking to the German Parliament in Berlin last week, Merkel said that calling in the IMF "would probably have to be the way out right now if action were to be taken." She went on to say that the euro-zone countries should be able to kick out one of their own to avert...
...have waded into the fray too. José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, has urged Merkel to agree on a package of "coordinated bilateral loans" for Greece - or risk harming the euro. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have also dismissed the IMF option, saying it would make the E.U. look incapable of resolving its own crises. (Sarkozy has his own reasons for keeping the IMF at bay: its managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is a potential rival in France's 2012 presidential election.) Others, like French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, have criticized...