Word: greek
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...Greek Drachmas would get you $3.33. By May 2000, that was down to 27¢. That's the way the currency crumbles in a smallish, less than rich nation beset by government budget deficits, inflation and a spotty record of economic policymaking. Convincing foreign investors to buy your debt is a struggle. Financial life is difficult in ways scarcely imagined by inhabitants of the lucky (and not large) club of nations with solid currencies...
...Xiphoid (Greek): swordlike
...that monetary union was never followed up by political union to coordinate budget and taxation practices and create euro-zone institutions and capacities to help member economies adapt to changes and turmoil. The result is member governments are left very few ways to deal with the current attack on Greek debt and the severe pressure that it's putting on the euro...
...need be, officials say, that will include a financial bailout of Greece, providing the funds to allow Athens to make its debt payments as the government slashes spending and raises taxes, no matter how unpopular this may be with its taxpayers. (See "In Paris and Berlin, Fury Over a Greek Bailout...
However, Hancké describes a scenario in which continued market doubts could drive the value of Greek bonds to junk status, confounding outside efforts to bail Athens out and forcing Greece to simply abandon the euro before it drags the currency down to nothing. "Once that happens, markets then turn successively on indebted countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland until they're driven out as well," Hancké explains. "At that point, even if a core of countries continue using the euro after so many others have left, the currency will have lost it's main original function...