"On the one hand, the Greek government has to offer truly credible measures to reach the lower target budget surplus and it has to show its commitment to the more limited set of reforms," Blanchard wrote in his economic blog.
The company must obtain written approval from Mr. Falcon before repurchasing shares of common stock, redeeming preferred stock or taking any other "action that is likely to impair the ability of Freddie Mac to manage the target capital surplus," Mr. Falcon said in a letter to Mr. Syron dated Jan . 28
As he put it in a recent lecture at the Bank of England, resurrecting a favourite word of Brown's: "The decision to target a surplus is not a judgment based on ideological or party-political grounds; it is based on the evidence and a realistic assessment of what is prudent for the UK".
He suggested a numerical target: trade surpluses should not exceed 4 percent of a nation's gross domestic product.
Future management should target farm surpluses that maintain a legacy store at or below a soil organic N mass of ∼20 kg N ha−1.
The 2009 budget targeted a surplus equivalent to 3% of GDP, but gave the government leeway to run this surplus down to 1% of GDP in order to support the economy during the economic slowdown.
Osborne had targeted a surplus of £11bn on the public finances by 2020-21, now forecast to be a £21bn deficit, with public debt peaking at more than 90% of GDP.
"I believe that, after seven or eight years of economic growth, it is right to be targeting a surplus because a responsible government puts aside money for a rainy day," he said.
European politicians forced the new Greek government to agree to target budget surpluses, implement "reforms", meet all debt obligations fully and desist from using existing bailout funds for any purpose other than supporting banks.
"Would you want a government that is not targeting a surplus in the next Parliament, that just said no, we're going to run overdrafts all the way through the next parliament," he told BBC political editor Nick Robinson.
