(i) Brexit

Brexit may be the best answer to a dying eurozone¹

“(…) Britain is not in the euro, for which we should all be thankful. But let’s be clear: staying in the EU means hitching the wagon to a currency zone unable to go forwards or backwards, and which will continue to struggle as a result.(…)

The eurozone crisis is about more than Greece. It is about Italy, where the economy is barely any bigger now than it was when the single currency was introduced. And France, where unemployment is double the level of the UK or the US. And Finland, one of the most tech-savvy countries in Europe, where the economy is 7% smaller than it was before the start of the financial crisis. And even Germany, where an export boom and high corporate profits have been paid for by workers in the form of below-inflation pay increases. (…)

Economic policy has been relentlessly deflationary. The interests of bankers have been given a higher priority than workers’. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus and Spain have been the laboratory mice in a continent-wide neoliberal experiment of a sort Tea Party Republicans in the US can only fantasise about.

(…) The eurozone is economically moribund, persists with policies that have demonstrably failed, is indifferent to democracy, is run by and for a small, self-perpetuating elite, and is slowing dying. The wrong comparison is being made. This is not the US without the electric chair; it is the USSR without the gulag.”

(ii) Banku zentralak

Stephanie Kelton ‏@StephanieKelton²

Well, I guess count me among the creatively challenged.

 

(Money is the most political of commodities)

2016 abu. 22

(iii) Eurogunea, berriz (Joseph Stiglitz)

Seven changes needed to save the euro and the EU³

“(…) Only by changing the eurozone’s rules and institutions can the euro be made to work. This will require seven changes:

• abandoning the convergence criteria, which require deficits to be less than 3% of GDP

• replacing austerity with a growth strategy, supported by a solidarity fund for stabilisation

• dismantling a crisis-prone system whereby countries must borrow in a currency not under their control, and relying instead on Eurobonds or some similar mechanism

• better burden-sharing during adjustment, with countries running current-account surpluses committing to raise wages and increase fiscal spending, thereby ensuring that their prices increase faster than those in the countries with current-account deficits;

• changing the mandate of the European Central Bank, which focuses only on inflation, unlike the US Federal Reserve, which takes into account employment, growth, and stability as well

• establishing common deposit insurance, which would prevent money from fleeing poorly performing countries, and other elements of a “banking union”

• and encouraging, rather than forbidding, industrial policies designed to ensure that the eurozone’s laggards can catch up with its leaders.

(…) As we’ve already seen this summer in the United Kingdom, if European leaders can’t or won’t make the hard decisions, European voters will make the decisions for them – and the leaders may not be happy with the results. “

(iv) Italia: Merkel eta Renzi

Merkel Tells Renzi He Can’t Bend Euro Rules to Boost Growth⁴