Baltic Countries Show What Greece May Look Like if it Follows IMF Advice http://www.zcommunications.org/baltic-countries-show-what-greece-may-look-forward-to-if-it-follows-ec-imf-advice-by-mark-weisbrot

Now matter how you slice it, these 19th-century-brutal pro-cyclical policies don't make sense. They are also grossly unfair, placing the burden of adjustment most squarely on poor and working people. I would not wish Estonia's "success" on any population, simply because they avoided a debt run-up and are on track to join the Euro. They may find, like Greece - as well as Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Italy -

that the costs of adopting a currency that is overvalued for a country's level of productivity are potentially quite high over the long run, even after these economies eventually recover.

The European Union and the IMF have the money and the ability to engineer a recovery based on counter-cyclical policies in Greece as well as the Baltic states. If it involves a debt restructuring - or even a haircut for the bondholders -- so be it. No government should accept policies that tell them they must bleed their economy for an indeterminate time before it can recover.