Greece to Miss Deficit Target

Things are not going well in Greece. On Sunday, the government of Prime Minister George Papandreou announced that it would be laying off 30,000 state employees—or, rather, placing them in a “reserve” pool that allows them to be put on partial pay and then fired after one year. At the same time, Athens announced that it will not meet deficit targets set by the EU and the IMF. In 2011, Greece’s deficit will be 8.5 percent of its GDP, off by almost a full percentage point from the target of 7.6 percent. Deficit rates will come up short in 2012 as well. On the news of Greece's financial woes, Asian stocks tanked and the euro plummetted to an eight-month low against the dollar.