A politica alemã contribui para a tragédia europeia. It will be impossible, however, for the eurozone to achieve prosperity on the basis of export-led growth: it is too large to do so. It has to achieve internal rebalancing, as well. Hitherto, as the IMF’s October World Economic Outlook shows, it is mass shedding of labour that has raised competitiveness, and collapsing domestic demand that has reduced external deficits in the crisis-hit countries. Thus the adjustment successes have been the other side of the coin of economic slumps and soaring unemployment. Yet, even so, the IMF does not forecast significant reductions in net liability positions. Their vulnerability will endure. So what, in brief, is happening? The answers are: creeping onset of deflation; mass joblessness; thwarted internal rebalancing and over-reliance on external demand. Yet all this is regarded as acceptable, desirable, even moral – indeed, a success. Why? The explanation is myths: the crisis was due to fiscal malfeasance instead of to irresponsible cross-border credit flows; fiscal policy has no role in managing demand; central bank purchases of government bonds are a step towards hyperinflation; and competitiveness determines external surpluses, not the balance between supply and insufficient demand. These myths are not harmless – for the eurozone or the world. On the contrary, they risk either trapping weaker member countries in semi-permanent depressions or leading, in the end, to an agonising break-up of the currency union itself. Either way, the European project would come to stand not for prosperity, but for poverty; not for partnership, but for pain. This, then, is a tragic story.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 20:38:06 +0000
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