Continued reduction of interest rates and extension of repayment maturities have served only to prolong Greece s struggles.

But it has also lost sight of the 1990 s the first of its so called lost decades when the authorities did all they could to prolong the life of insolvent banks and many nonfinancial corporations.

Arab authoritarian regimes, unlike others that have given way to democracy, are incapable of self reform they have, however, mastered the tactics needed to prolong the life spans of their aging despotisms.