I know I am an armchair commentator hiding out in my research environment and not really accountable to anybody other than the funding agencies I win grants from. I am certainly not a Finance Minister with a nation in crisis on my hands. But with that said I wonder how any Finance Minister who aims to create full employment and expand equity and undo years of deliberately imposed neo-liberal hardship can claim his nation will “Never, never, never!” record a primary fiscal deficit again. That comment has to be dismissed as political rhetoric rather than an expression of a serious evaluation of reality. What worries me about Greece at the moment is that we are seeing a trend around the world where politicians over promise (or lie straight out) about their intentions to apparently appease the multitude of vested interests then proceed to do what they like. I discussed how this is now backfiring in the recent blog – Time is running out for neo-liberalism. An understanding of macroeconomics will tell you (and I know the Finance Minister in question knows all this) that a government cannot guarantee to never run a primary fiscal deficit forever unless they are prepared to allow for large swings in unemployment, something I thought the new Greek government was averse to, and it is that aversion, which defines their popular appeal.