Things are definitely not looking good for Greece today – various snippings from FT Alphaville (also Reuters, Zero Hedge and Bloomberg)

Firstly, the Greek government seems to be in need of a new calculator :

The EU released figures that showed Greece’s 2009 budget deficit at 13.6%, significantly higher than the government’s 12.7% estimate. Eurostat also raised questions about the veracity of the government data – nothing new there. But it makes Greece’s aim of cutting its deficit this year to 8.7% all the more difficult.

Secondly, Moodys downgrades the sovereign debt again :

…late in the day Moody’s downgraded the sovereign to A3 from A2 and warned of further downgrades if markets remain choppy.

Thirdly, the spread between Greek and German bonds grew to its widest in 12 years :

The Greek/German government bond yield spread has just hit 600bps – a level last seen in February 1998.

Fourthly, plans to fast track legislation in Germany have stalled (comment from a Goldman Sachs economist):

Dirk Schumacher reports from the road: The finance minister has failed to convince Conservative MPs to approve his chosen tactic to get the financial help package for Greece fast through parliament. The finance minister had planned to “attach” the financial help to a draft law that had already passed most of the usual parliamentary hurdles.

This plan, however, has now been rejected by the Conservative MPs who demanded a specific stand alone law. This may significantly delay the whole process of parliamentary approval. There is the possibility of fast track legislation that would take only about two weeks but the opposition would need to approve this. All this does not imply that the financial help will not be approved by parliament in the end, but it has significantly increased the possibility that the German part of the package will be disbursed only later.

Fifthly, the IMF are telling Greece to get on with cutting before they have to call round with their huge IMF chopper (make your own mind up whether I mean axe, helicopter or phallus but having read what the IMF is up to in Latvia, I would suggest it probably feels akin to one up the dirt box with the latter):

“Greece is a wake-up call,” Jose Vinals, director of the IMF’s monetary and capital markets department, told reporters on April 19. “What we are saying is ‘do not let the financial situation get out of hand and undertake the necessary measures precisely to remain on the safe side.’”

And if all that isn’t enough, suggestions from one of the junior coalition partners in Angela Merkels government that Greece should either cut more spending or leave the Euro :

A finance expert from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partners was reported as saying Greece needed to intensify its austerity plan or leave the euro zone currency union.

Frank Schaeffler, of the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) who share power with Merkel’s conservatives, told Handelsblatt business daily that Greece’s debt situation was worsening and that further savings measures were needed.

“If Greece cannot push through these austerity measures, it must opt out of the euro zone voluntarily,” he said in an advance copy of an article to run in the paper’s Friday edition.

Over at Zero Hedge there is also an excellent article showing how the Greek governments financial forecasting efforts would even make Gordon Brown blush.