A Crisis in Full Flight

Sinn, Hans-Werner. For a while, it looked as if the European Central Bank’s €1 trillion credit program to pump liquidity into Europe’s banking system had calmed global financial markets. But now interest rates for Italian and Spanish government bonds are on the rise again, closing in on about 6%. Πηγή: Project Syndicate πλήρες κείμενο

Austerity Has Only Just Begun

Johnson, Simon. In the early 1930s, much of Western Europe faced a situation very much like today — if countries wanted to keep their existing fixed exchange rates (a constant value for their currency), they needed to engage in considerable austerity. Governments held long and hard to the notion that to change the exchange rate […]

The Unbearable Slowness of Internal Devaluation

Krugman, Paul. The euro area’s economic strategy, such as it is, rests on two pillars: confidence through austerity, and “internal devaluation”. You know how the first is going; what about the second? Πηγή: The New York Times πλήρες κείμενο