Showing posts with label euro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label euro. Show all posts
Monday, June 18, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Greece and the Euro: Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover
Greece and the Euro: Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover
For the Greeks, the euro love affair is over, but breaking up is hard to do. Defaulting on their debts will force them out of the euro zone and back to issuing drachmas, which could get brutally devalued by speculators as soon as they are traded on foreign exchange markets.
Fortunately, there are alternatives to an ugly divorce. The treaties binding the 17 member nations are just a set of rules, entered into by mutual agreement, and rules can be bent, broken or stretched, especially in crises. The European Central Bank (ECB) has already broken a litany of rules to save the banks, and so has the Federal Reserve, which found multiple ways to do what it initially said it couldn't do to save Wall Street in 2008. Rules that can be bent for banks can be bent for the people - not just the Greeks, but the Irish, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and others lined up behind them.
For the Greeks, the euro love affair is over, but breaking up is hard to do. Defaulting on their debts will force them out of the euro zone and back to issuing drachmas, which could get brutally devalued by speculators as soon as they are traded on foreign exchange markets.
Fortunately, there are alternatives to an ugly divorce. The treaties binding the 17 member nations are just a set of rules, entered into by mutual agreement, and rules can be bent, broken or stretched, especially in crises. The European Central Bank (ECB) has already broken a litany of rules to save the banks, and so has the Federal Reserve, which found multiple ways to do what it initially said it couldn't do to save Wall Street in 2008. Rules that can be bent for banks can be bent for the people - not just the Greeks, but the Irish, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and others lined up behind them.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Is the Eurozone About to Collapse--and How Will it Impact the US? | | AlterNet
Is the Eurozone About to Collapse--and How Will it Impact the US? | | AlterNet
The third lesson is that austerity is counterproductive, and that “expansionary austerity” is exactly what it would seem—a dangerous oxymoron [see Ari Berman, “The Austerity Class,” November 7]. Germany’s view is that the crisis was caused by excessive government debt, built up over the past decade or two, and that market “confidence” and economic growth can be restored only through fiscal consolidation involving steep spending cuts and tax increases. But as common sense would have suggested, imposing austerity measures has killed off growth in much of the peripheral economies while pushing the eurozone economy as a whole closer to recession.
The third lesson is that austerity is counterproductive, and that “expansionary austerity” is exactly what it would seem—a dangerous oxymoron [see Ari Berman, “The Austerity Class,” November 7]. Germany’s view is that the crisis was caused by excessive government debt, built up over the past decade or two, and that market “confidence” and economic growth can be restored only through fiscal consolidation involving steep spending cuts and tax increases. But as common sense would have suggested, imposing austerity measures has killed off growth in much of the peripheral economies while pushing the eurozone economy as a whole closer to recession.
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