TEc - In the dumps - Portugal's plight as I see it, replying to a fellow reader

Economic policy is about striking the right balances - macro and micro - that ultimately provide sound and sustainable growth in a given economy.
As it is there are enough uncontrollable variables beyond reach of any government. This makes it all the more pressing for governments to manage public accounts responsibly.
They owe it to their citizens/taxpayers first and foremost.
Having witnessed the full picture unfold over many years, a close look at the relevant graphs and data gives us the background to the current troubles.

While I agree with you on many points, I also know Portugal's financing needs ratcheted up to a level that became untenable.
Furthermore, the debt piled up to keep the State running and finance non-productive investment - broadly speaking.
It did not go into wealth drivers that might eventually produce returns to help pay the interest on it.
Basically, the trendlines were set upwards while the economy staggered never to show to really benefit from high levels of State spending.

The current administration has had to cope with a country on the brink. The bail-out programme is evidence enough of just how serious the situation had become once financial markets pushed interest rates over and above the 7% threshold.

A country's economy cannot be fired up overnight.
Least of all by government decree or goodwill gestures. Or wishful thinking.

It takes proper planning of national priority investments, good government that frees up private initiative and provides an environment conducive to FDI flows, etc.

Now taxation levels are excessively high choking companies and individuals, turning away foreign investors.
The time is ripe targeting growth as an absolute priority while not losing sight of fundamental balances.

Last but not least, I wish I could agree with you on the wrong premises...

TEc - In the dumps - Portugal's dire straits

My comment will dwell on Portugal only as Greece is relatively out of bounds.I know not, detailed enough, the intricacies of its internal set-up.
Besides, it is too painful to watch the two countries banded together, apparently(?) following similar paths with a time lag.

With an economy in tatters, an exhausted debt capability and a fledgling financial position into the near future one wonders how top politicians still jostle incessantly to reap some immediate short-lived benefit.
Portugal is caught between a rock and a (very) hard place having played itself into the hands of financial markets simply to keep the State going. Unable to generate tax revenue large enough to meet its insatiable needs, the Portuguese State now faces slimmed-down renewal or quick demise in the current format size.

Much is said about the lack of strong and purposeful leadership to carry out long overdue reform.
I would rather say no non-sense good government.
The more it is talked about the less likely it seems to get done.
Some have long claimed the State is unreformable. They might well be right.
If current circumstances do not make reform mandatory, whatever will?

Regardless of short-term obligations and financing requirements the underlying issue remains the economy.
Wealth creation by digging into every material and intellectual resource available that will eventually set Portugal on a sounder footing.
Balances to the country's external accounts have been forcefully restored thanks mainly to the collapse in internal demand and economic activity in general.

Much harder, or the major structural challenge, will be to keep those balances once the economy finally starts to grow.

Reply to a comment by a fellow reader:

I'm definitely not going to be drawn into a play with words.
Anyway, 'now'(in the context) is meant as the point in time when it became obvious State expenditure was growing much faster than paltry economic growth for a full decade at least.
If State spending balloons over many years without the economy matching up then external financing is the only option to fill the gap, i.e. as long as there are interested parties to buy debt.
Budget deficits recur year on year to unmanageable levels, get thrown on to the country's public debt until the debt load itself becomes unsustainable.

Please figure out 'insatiable' in the context.

TEc - Rewarding work - On pay gaps around the world

This will always be sensitive territory raising more questions than there are answers.
However, the more unequal a society, the poorer a country by per capita GDP at PPP, the wider the gap in pay. There are exceptions to this general rule. South Asia is a good case in point if perks and side-deals are not accounted for.

In other words factual evidence shows that poorer States tend to reward their lawmakers lavishly even in absolute terms. On relative terms it becomes strikingly obnoxious to begin to comment.
The worst part is there is no fix to these gross imbalances produced by those with power to satisfy their own notion of payscales.
They have it on their grounds regardless.

At the opposite end affluent societies show much greater balance across the board.
Lawmakers' pay is but a reflection of this.

TEc - On the rocks - Portugal's political infighting set against its severe ongoing economic and financial troubles

"The politicians fiddle while the country burns" is a phrase read many years ago that I now borrow to best describe Portugal's current predicament.
Literally, summer forest fires aside, Portugal is faced with scorching challenges akin to a gutted wasteland.

From the very core of the governing center-right coalition nothing short of implosion took place in the early days of July. First the hitherto all-powerful Finance Minister resigned followed by the Foreign Minister - and leader of the coalition's junior partner - the very next day while the former's substitute was being sworn in. Strains and cracks had always been present as might be expected of a government so forcefully externally constrained. And a people constantly jolted by endless austerity, subjected to never-ending economic and psychological duress.

Portugal's political leadership and much of the country's other leaderships are clearly at a loss finding pathways to future collective prosperity.
In good times as in bad they never could or would see beyond the issues of the day.