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2013: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304549504579320343987313738 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023045495045793203... 2014: http://www.

• arethuza 11y ago
  The second of those articles seems to imply that aid to Greece is a key part of the income in the calculation of "primary surplus" and the third says "Alas, the Greek government’s 2013 primary surplus is a statistical mirage" - not exactly positive messages!
• tptacek 11y ago
  You can find WSJ stories suggesting that the 2014 primary surplus is also dubious; under what the WSJ says is a "conventional" definition of primary surplus, not the one tailored to Greece, they apparently ran a deficit of over 8% of GDP in 2014. http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2014/04/23/greek-primary-surplus-statistics-troika-edition/ http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2014/04/23/greek-primary-surpl... So far, the narrative that Greece was chugging along running a surplus before accounting for debt service does not appear to square with the facts.