WSJ scrutinizes accounting standards to blame for Greek debt

The Wall Street Journal's article titled "Europe Slow to Adopt New Accounting Standard Despite Greek Crisis" states that, despite not having achieved much in its first two months, the Greek government did succeed in establishing a parliamentary inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the country's bankruptcy.

The article finds it odd that the inquiry "will only be allowed to investigate decisions taken since October 2009 following the election that brought George Papandreou's PASOK government to office." The investigation is viewed by the article's writer, Simon Nixon, an exercise for finger-pointing for Greece's current predicament focused entirely on those who signed and attempted to implement the bailout programas agreed in 2010 and 2012 with Greece's eurozone partners and the IMF.

Nixon criticizes the effort to find those responsible for Greek debt as it looks like a "missed opportunity." Nixon points out that it is still unclear how Greece ran up a deficit of 15% of gross domestic product apparently without anyone noticing. Answering this question would highlight major weaknesses in Greece's public-sector accounting systems.