IMF admits disaster in Austerity orders

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

The IMF underestimated the damage that fiscal austerity would do to the Greek economy in its earliest rescue of the nation in 2010. It was too slow to promote a write-down of the nation’s debts to more sustainable levels. And it was compromised by a sometimes unwieldy partnership with major European institutions in what became known as the “troika.”

The IMF could have handled its 2010 bailout of Greece quite a bit better, a staff review found. (Louisa Gouliamaki)

The result of these “notable failures,” enumerated in an “Ex-post evaluation” that the IMF published Wednesday, is the depression-stricken nation that is Greece today. The nation’s unemployment rate is 27 percent and economic activity remains well below its levels of half a decade ago.