Essays
Unilateral default vs negotiated debt reduction
, 24/11/2010
Michael Burke took me to task for writing, in our Modest Proposal, that it is “utopian to expect member states to default and remain within the eurozone.” Michael asks: “Why? Local, county and state authorities have all defaulted in the US, without having to flee the US Dollar area. Surely default, partial or otherwise, is an […]
The idea of a wholesale attack on private and public European debt is catching on.
, 22/11/2010
It seems that our idea of a multilateral negotiation for reducing the total size of state debt and bank losses is catching on. Here is what Gerald Holtman wrote in the FT today: The problem is that if you force investors to shoulder some of the losses you cannot move one country at a time. […]
A New Versailles Treaty Haunts Europe. (And this time it is not just me thinking so…)
, 21/11/2010
Last May, when the ‘rescue’ package was imposed by the EU and the IMF on Greece, all commentators were talking of a ‘bail out’ for Greece, differing only on whether it was deserved or not. A minority protested that the supposed rescue was bad for Greece, in that it came with some many strings attached […]
Gavan Butler links the East Asian collapse of the late 1990s to the current euro crisis
, 17/11/2010
I just received the following email from my friend and colleague Gavan Butler, in response to my piece on the euro crisis. I think it makes for interesting reading: Dear Yanis. I enjoyed your contribution. It took me back to the debates in the period 2001 to 2003 about what differently might have been done […]