Washington Post (October 27)
“Not many countries would cheer about an economic growth rate of one-tenth of 1 percent, sustained for a mere three months. But for Spain, which has been mired in negative growth for two years, the tiny uptick in the third quarter of 2013 represents a kind of breakthrough.” For Europe, however, this is just the slightest hint of a “silver lining in a what is still a very dense, dark cloud hanging over Europe’s economy. Spain and its fellow euro-zone debtors — Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Greece — don’t just need a trickle of growth to bring down their unemployment rates and debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratios. They need a gusher; many consecutive months of high-single-digit growth. And there is no short-term prospect of that.”
Tags: Breakthrough, Debt, Economy, Euro zone, Europe, GDP, Greece, Growth, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Unemployment, Uptick
