Wall Street Journal (March 27)
“Nothing is ever simple with a euro-bailout, and the Cyprus fiasco is proving that again. On Thursday the tiny island disaster will become the first euro-zone country to impose capital controls since the single currency was introduced. This will spare Cyprus from immediate economic collapse, but the curbs are a worrying precedent.”
New York Times (November 16)
In Europe, “there is very little time left to avoid financial catastrophe.” Much of Europe’s fate now lies in the hands of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. Unfortunately, she has been following, rather than leading. “She needs to challenge her voters’ simplistic stereotypes of southern European sloth and tell them the truth: The real threat to Germany isn’t inflation; it is an economic collapse across Europe.”
The New York Times (September 12)
Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman believes “the euro is now at risk of collapse.” He warns that “we’re not talking about a crisis that will unfold over a year or two; this thing could come apart in a matter of days. And if it does, the whole world will suffer.” To avoid “an impeccable disaster,” Krugman believes the European Central Bank (ECB) must “lend freely and cut rates.” In addition, the ECB should be “buying up Spanish and Italian debt — that is, doing what these countries would be doing for themselves if they still had their own currencies.”
