I’ve been doing some work on gaining a better understanding of the root causes of eurozone (EZ) debt crisis. As a point of departure, let’s take a couple of dueling quotes. First, Wolfgang Sch\u00e4uble, Germany\u2019s finance minister, from his recent piece in the Financial Times:<\/p>\n
Whatever role the markets have played in catalysing the sovereign debt crisis, it is an undisputable fact that excessive state spending has led to unsustainable levels of debt and deficits that now threaten our economic welfare.<\/em><\/p>\n Next, here’s an excerpt from a statement recently made by Greece’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Evangelos Venizelos:<\/p>\n We should not be the scapegoat or the easy excuse that will be used by European and international institutions in order to hide their own lack of competence to manage the crisis and give a definitive and complete answer to the attacks against euro, the world\u2019s strongest currency.<\/em><\/p>\n These two statements capture the essence of two radically different views about the origins of the EZ debt crisis. Which one is right?<\/p>\n