debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Al Jazeera International produced a good roundup of the current problems of the Eurozone. I gave my two pennies worth at the end of the report: With the eurozone recession set to get worse, world leaders (…) will have to face a number of challenges. For two years the debt crisis has loomed over Europe. Greece, [...]
Further thoughts on the observation that the current British slump has now gone on longer than the slump of the 1930s. Is Britain unique? No, it isn’t. The NIESR has developed a monthly GDP series for Britain, which lets it use real-time data for the comparison. I can’t replicate that, but I can use the Maddison historical data and IMF data — including [...]
For the third year in a row, the eurozone is the weakest link in the world economy. In 2010, attention was focused on responses to the crisis on the eurozone periphery – Greece, Portugal, and Ireland. In 2011, the crisis moved to the core, with Italy and Spain feeling the heat, and concerns mounting about [...]
The Euro crisis may soon be over. This is what German Finance Minister Schäuble thinks and his view is finding an echo among a growing community in the financial markets. But is it true? For Chancellor Merkel and her followers, we are experiencing a debt crisis caused by irresponsible fiscal policies. Their remedy is therefore [...]
2011 was supposed to be the make-or-break year for the euro. First it was weeks, then just a matter of days to save the euro. Yet, 2012 has begun and we are still paying our taxes and bills are writing our contracts in euros. Not only here in Brussels, but also in Bologna, Barcelona, Braga [...]
If Italy is too big to fail and too big to save, how can it save itself? This column suggests a survival strategy. The Italian households should finance their own government by buying its debt, and the ECB should prevent a collapse of the Italian banking system. The fate of the euro and the fate [...]
Both Greece and Italy have installed so-called ‘technocratic’ governments led by a former senior European Central Banker and European Commissioner, respectively. The markets reacted with a relief rally. Berlusconi’s apparent final demise was greeted with signs of public jubiliation in Rome. As understandable as the relief is, these changes at the top make far less [...]
The fate of the Euro will be determined not in Brussels, Frankfurt or Berlin, but in households and firms across Europe. In effect, the countries of the Eurozone have returned to the Gold Standard. The social costs, in terms of the unemployment and political change, of readjustment to the Gold Standard could prove to be [...]
Let me recall the verdicts of the great Portuguese man of letters José Saramago, who – frustrated by the stultifying dilatoriness of Italian legal justice – would not meekly wait for the court of Italian conscience to be called into session. Saramago, alas, won’t be able to react in person on the sorely delayed verdict [...]
When was the last time you read that a country’s economic problems were the result of capitalists demanding too much profit? This question occurred to me when I discovered from Phillip Inman (The Guardian 5 November 2011) that the Italian debt crisis is occurring because, “…Italian workers have paid themselves more than their German equivalents [...]
Italy’s debt crisis has caused political upheaval. What can be done to cure the country’s decade-old growth slump? Since Italy’s capital investment, educational attainment, and market regulation improved during the last ten years, this column says its growth troubles lie in its governance problems, which worsened dramatically. Italy’s economy has clearly underperformed since it entered [...]
It may be hard to imagine that Europe’s crisis could worsen, but it just has. European Union leaders failed at their summit two weeks ago to produce anything of substance. China and Brazil are clearly reluctant to come to the rescue by providing a large injection of foreign cash. And the recent G-20 summit in [...]
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