2015-02-05theguardian.com

First, let us be clear: Greece could be blamed for its troubles if it were the only country where the troika's medicine failed miserably. But Spain had a surplus and a low debt ratio before the crisis, and it too, is in depression. What is needed is not structural reform within Greece and Spain, so much as structural reform of the eurozone's design and a fundamental rethinking of the policy frameworks that have resulted in the monetary union's spectacularly bad performance.

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At the international level, we have not yet created an orderly process for giving countries a fresh start. Since even before the 2008 crisis, the UN, with the support of almost all of the developing and emerging countries, has been seeking to create such a framework. But the US is adamantly opposed; perhaps it wants to reinstitute debtor prisons for over indebted countries' officials (if so, space may be opening up at Guantánamo Bay).



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