The euro has taken away the possibility for national governments to manage their economies in a meaningful way — and in Greece the people has had to pay the true costs of its concomita…
OK this is not just about the debt crisis but…
Professor Noam Chomsky talks about Europe’s refugee crisis and the Greek debt drama in an exclusive interview.
Europe is torn apart as there is no end to the arrival of ever greater number of refugees and migrants, while many European countries, especially in the south, continue facing severe economic problems such as unacceptable unemployment levels, high debt-to-GDP ratios, and increasing poverty and exclusion for their youths.
What does the world’s leading public intellectual, renowned MIT linguist, philosopher and social critic Noam Chomsky, author of over 100 books and thousands of articles, think about current developments in Europe?
Source: Noam Chomsky on Europe’s Refugee Crisis and the Endless Greek Debt Drama | GreekReporter.com
A while ago economists were worried about weak European economies in Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain.
Recently it has just been Greece, but now the Telegraph tells us that Portugal is looking for a way out of its debt problems and the austerity recommended by other countries in Europe.
Defiant Portugal shatters the eurozone’s political complacency
I found this article in the weekly online magazine for chartered accountants.
Put simply lending money to help a country out of debt is like hosing someone down to dry them off. In the end you will have to switch the hose off and get out a towel
The damage of deferring Greek debt restructuring
29 July 2015The point of restructuring debt is to reduce the volume of new loans needed to salvage an insolvent entity. Creditors offer debt relief to get more value back and to extend as little new finance to the insolvent entity as possible
Remarkably, Greece’s creditors seem unable to appreciate this sound financial principle. Where Greek debt is concerned, a clear pattern has emerged over the past five years. It remains unbroken to this day.
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For full article go to http://economia.icaew.com/opinion/july-2015/the-damage-of-deferring-greek-debt-restructuring?utm_source=economianews&utm_medium=articles&utm_content=headlines&utm_campaign=july31
Basil Fawlty would have been proud.
A French economist (Thomas Piketty) was interviewed by a German paper (Die Zeit). This links to an English translation.
An extract gives you a flavour of Piketty’s no-holds-barred approach
Piketty:… After the war ended in 1945, Germany’s debt amounted to over 200% of its GDP. Ten years later, little of that remained: public debt was less than 20% of GDP…. We never would have managed this unbelievably fast reduction in debt through the fiscal discipline that we today recommend to Greece. Instead … our states employed … debt relief…
ZEIT: That happened because people recognised that the high reparations demanded of Germany after World War I were one of the causes of the Second World War. People wanted to forgive Germany’s sins this time!
Piketty: Nonsense! This had nothing to do with moral clarity; it was a rational political and economic decision….
via Thomas Piketty: ‘Germany Has Never Repaid its Debts. It Has No Right to Lecture Greece’ | The Wire.
Borrowing Ideas 