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Thanks to Germany it's 2008 all over again

A 'German problem' in Europe

The greatest swindle of modern times is the massive ‘bait and switch’ perpetrated on the publics of Europe by their governments on behalf of their banks. What we refer to today as the ‘European Sovereign Debt Crisis’ began largely as a private sector financial crisis when too big to fail banks got caught with too many worthless assets on their books in 2008, write Mark Blyth and Abraham Newman.

Politicians deftly, and all too quickly, turned this into a crisis of the public sector by profligate governments, ironically. While the story of fiscal irresponsibility has some plausibility in the Greek case, it simply isn’t true for much anyone else. In short, ballooning public debt is a consequence of the financial crisis, it is not a cause of it. It occurred when the debt of the private sector was transformed into public sector debt via bailouts, lost revenues, lower growth, and higher transfers...

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Find in this article:

	To get the causality right
	Disastrous result for Europe’s periphery
	It’s time to commit to European solidarity

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The new German parochialism / The global social crisis

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WDEV Recent Issues

Issue 1-2/Jan-Jun 2017
The end of US hegemony + Financing for development? Mostly not! + Turkey at the crossroads
Issue 1-4/Jan-Dec 2016
The Brexit is not gender-neutral + Poverty reduction at risk + ITUC Rights Index 2016 + Europe's multiple crises
Issue 3-4/Jul-Dec 2015
Left losses in Latin America + World Bank's gender strategy + Markel's victory in Greece
Issue 1-2/Jan-Jun 2015
Tax avoidance and investment policy + Alternatives to stagnation in Europe + New labour standard + Rehabilitating the c word
Issue 4/Oct-Dec 2014
Challenging 2015 + PPP and infrastructure + The case of Ebola + OECD and tax avoidance + Juncker's new European Commission
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