Europe’s Greek Test
by Paul Krugman
JAN. 30, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/opinion/paul-krugman-europes-greek-test.html?comments#permid=13981650
"Although nobody knows it, Greece has actually made great progress in regaining competitiveness; wages and costs have fallen dramatically, so that, at this point, austerity is the main thing holding the economy back."
I wonder if Prof. Krugman could pause his self-righteous moralizing long enough to think about the implication of that statement. Would Greece, without the pressure put on it by the rest of the Euro zone, have implemented the structural changes necessary to improve its competitiveness to the point it has - what was the term - a structural budget surplus? Of course not.
The real underlying problem is that the moneyed elite in Greece (just as in the US) has been plundering the country at the expense of the 90% for decades. It is unfortunately true that this has been happening with the tacit collusion of other countries, which were happy to close their eyes to the problems as long as their own elite (front and center, the financial industries) were making a handsome profit at the expense of European tax payers.
If the new, nominally "socialist", government of Greece is true to social principals, it will refocus the "structural changes" still needed away from cutting jobs and social services for the 90% and towards curtailing the power of the moneyed elites, who, like in the US, pay little or no taxes and receive huge amounts of government transfers. These economic eletes receive support from the insane "economic theory" of free markets evangelized by Krugman.
I wonder if Prof. Krugman could pause his self-righteous moralizing long enough to think about the implication of that statement. Would Greece, without the pressure put on it by the rest of the Euro zone, have implemented the structural changes necessary to improve its competitiveness to the point it has - what was the term - a structural budget surplus? Of course not.
The real underlying problem is that the moneyed elite in Greece (just as in the US) has been plundering the country at the expense of the 90% for decades. It is unfortunately true that this has been happening with the tacit collusion of other countries, which were happy to close their eyes to the problems as long as their own elite (front and center, the financial industries) were making a handsome profit at the expense of European tax payers.
If the new, nominally "socialist", government of Greece is true to social principals, it will refocus the "structural changes" still needed away from cutting jobs and social services for the 90% and towards curtailing the power of the moneyed elites, who, like in the US, pay little or no taxes and receive huge amounts of government transfers. These economic eletes receive support from the insane "economic theory" of free markets evangelized by Krugman.
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