New York Times (January 24)
Given the struggles of ordinary Greeks amid a still flailing economy, “the only surprise in the rise of the left-wing Syriza party, which is expected to come in first in Sunday’s general election, is that it has taken so long for an anti-austerity party to come to the fore.”
Financial Times (December 30)
During 2014, populists “enjoyed one of their most encouraging years since the second world war. Insurgent anti-establishment movements recorded electoral triumphs and opinion poll gains everywhere from France and Greece to Spain, Sweden and the UK.” Despite this resurgence, the populist movements are often at cross-purposes, differing widely in what they support.
Bloomberg (December 29)
“The Greek parliament’s decision to trigger elections by rejecting Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s presidential candidate throws Europe back into turmoil. The European Union can avert a full-blown existential crisis, however, if it acknowledges that Greece’s economic pain is real and not entirely self-inflicted.”
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
Wall Street Journal (October 11)
The misleading “story you hear in Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt” is that “Greece’s fiscal adjustment is on track and its economy is bottoming out.…. Europe’s politicians prefer the status quo of eternal, rolling bailouts because it serves their purposes. They never have to present their taxpayers with a bill for the Greek rescue. And while Greece’s economy never really recovers, it might avoid any new crisis.” The time has come for more realistic reckoning.
Tags: Bailouts, Crisis, Economy, Europe, Greece, Greek rescue, Politicians, Recovery, Status quo, Taxpayers
The Economist (November 10)
“Greece will remain a disaster until it gets the treatment given to heavily indebted poor countries in the past.” Short-term rescue loans won’t work. “The experience of dozens of debt-ridden countries in Latin America and Africa holds lessons that Greece’s rescuers ought to heed…. The most indebted started to recover only when their debts, including those owed to official creditors, were slashed.”
New York Times (October 24)
“The lesson that should be learned from Greece is that its fiscal mess has been made far worse by severe budget cuts.” Data released on Monday shows that the EU “countries that have most ruthlessly cut their budgets — Greece, especially — have seen their overall debt loads increase as a share of the economy.”
Tags: Austerity, Budget cuts, Debt load, Greece
Bloomberg (July 24)
Extending Greek repayment terms to make the program achievable might cost 16 – 20 billion euros ($19 – $24 billion). “Whatever German Vice Chancellor Roesler may think, the risk of contagion from a Greek exit remains high, and the damage to Europe’s political project would be lasting. Compared with those costs, 20 billion euros is a bargain.”
Extending Greek repayment terms to make the program achievable might cost 16 – 20 billion euros ($19 – $24 billion). “Whatever German Vice Chancellor Roesler may think, the risk of contagion from a Greek exit remains high, and the damage to Europe’s political project would be lasting. Compared with those costs, 20 billion euros is a bargain.”
Forbes (June 4)
“Japan’s political leaders are more obtuse and irresponsible than those found in Europe. They have completely forgotten the prescriptions of sound money and ever lower taxes that fueled their nation’s extraordinary postwar economic expansion. As if in the grips of a death wish, Japan has, since the late 1980s, repeatedly raised taxes, with new levies of all kinds imposed…. Unlike Greece, Japan still has immense assets. But the tremors foretelling an economic apocalypse are there: Its once vaunted individual savings rate, for example, has virtually disappeared.”
New York Times (May 24)
“With Greece in meltdown, raising fears of cascading bank insolvencies and deepening recession, Europe’s leaders failed again this week to agree on the ambitious initiatives needed to quell the crisis.” If they don’t quickly wise up and promote growth, “the consequences could be disastrous — for their countries and the rest of the world.”
