Now that Greece has given in to pressure from its peers for a more austere budget, the euro zone's policy brass suddenly seems more sympathetic towards its most troubled member. On reflection, perhaps the fault with Greece's parlous public finances lay not just with its budgetary profligacy but also elsewhere: in the absence of a central euro-zone authority for helping out cash-strapped countries; or with the credit-rating agencies that had unhelpfully downgraded Greek government bonds; or with the amoral speculators who had bet against those bonds and helped drive up borrowing costs.
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