The slow motion crash that is the eurozone has finally become so obvious that it cannot be ignored. Joseph Stiglitz states the obvious that everybody surely must have been thinking. I like Marshall Aurbach’s idea better though…
The European Union and the European Central Bank should create a crisis mechanism akin to the US Federal Reserve to help debt-hit member-states such as Greece, Nobel lauriat economist Joseph Stiglitz said Tuesday.
“(There is) a lack of European macroeconomic structure to help countries with particular difficulties,” he told a conference in Athens.
“In the United States we have a huge national budget that can be allocated to parts of the country that are suffering,” he said.
While the European Central Bank regularly lends money to national banks at income rates lower than the international market, the same option is not currently available to governments, Stiglitz noted.
“If you are willing to lend to banks, why not lend to governments? Does Europe not have confidence in the governments that constitute it?” he argued. (link to article)