Professional Documents
Culture Documents
NO PAIN NO GAIN
If you dont pay for your mistakes, you
dont learn from them. Its a painful lesson,
but Greece, Portugal and the rest need to
go through it. If not, they will soon fall back
into their bad habits, confident that their
prudent northern neighbours will bail them
out.
leaner, meaner and more competitive. Eurozone nations need shock treatment to ensure
they can hold their own in the globalized
economy. Its their failure to swallow the
economic medicine that has left the likes of
Portugal and Italy with a decade of stagnant
growth.
FREE LUNCH
In a currency union you have to play by the
rules. The only alternative to austerity is asking
the hard-working taxpayers of Germany, the
Netherlands and other fiscally responsibility
countries to fork out for a feckless southern
spending spree. That is morally wrong and it
would have grave political consequences in
Europe, turning northern voters towards antiEuropean popularists. Its already happening in
the Netherlands and Finland.
AUSTERITY = RECOVERY
There can be no real recovery unless nations
get their public finances in order. You simply
cant spend your way out of a recession. Even
in normal circumstances thats a recipe for
inflation and instability. Within the euro-zone it
would place untenable strains on the currency
union. Markets will only be reassured by
credible, long-term plans to cut deficits and
debt. Only then can sustainable growth
resume.