Euro: eine traurige Geschichte von Größenwahn
Schon im August erschien bei INDEPENDENT eine Besprechung des Buches des ehemaligen IWF Chefökonomen Ashoka Mody zum Drama um den Euro. Lesenswert und erschütternd:
- “The orthodox view from those serious thinkers who wish the eurozone to survive is that the single currency’s road to long-term stability must pass through a process of reform summed up by the words ‚more Europe‘.” – bto: was ich für unmöglich halte angesichts der Lage in der EU.
- “It’s argued that some combination of jointly-guaranteed debt for all member states (or ‚eurobonds‘), considerably larger fiscal transfers to the periphery, possibly even the creation of a pan-eurozone finance minister, will be needed to finally banish the spectre of collapse from Europe’s single currency.” – bto: Leser dieser Seiten wissen, dass es nicht funktionieren kann, weil die Dimensionen viel zu groß sind.
- “Ashoka Mody, a former IMF economist and one who worked on Europe at the very height of the single currency’s existential crisis, takes a very different view. In his analysis, laid out in a comprehensive and fastidiously researched new book Eurotragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts, a retreat from integration is necessary for the eurozone to survive. Reculer pour mieux sauter, one might say.” – bto: was inhaltlich gut nachvollziehbar ist, aber politisch natürlich echter Sprengstoff für die Politiker, die vor einem Scherbenhaufen eigenen Versagens stehen.
- “So definitely no eurobonds. Indeed, Mody recommends full fiscal responsibility for national governments, scrapping existing deficit and debt rules. He argues that Greek sovereign debt, one of the crises that came within a hair’s breadth of breaking the currency area in 2015, should simply be written off by other member states – something, Mody insists, should have been done as early as 2010 given it was manifestly un-repayable.” – bto: Ja, wir müssen jeden einzeln Pleite gehen lassen. Das wäre übrigens Marktwirtschaft und nicht was wir heute machen, wo Sozialismus herrscht, wohin man auch blickt.
- “Mody’s answer is a new debt restructuring mechanism to kick in before traders start to panic. On monetary policy, he urges a change in the European Central Bank’s mandate to include unemployment as well as inflation, bringing it into line with that of the US Federal Reserve.” – bto: Bei der EZB bin ich sicherlich anderer Meinung, weil das Geldsystem in der jetzigen Form natürlich die Probleme befeuert hat.
- “Mody’s broader vision is of a new ‚republic of letters‘ in Europe, involving supercharged state and private sector investment in education and research and development in order to drive innovation, prosperity, and economic inclusion to all within the Continent.” – bto: Gegeben den heutigen Stand von Bildung und Innovationskraft muss man die Starken stärken, nicht die Schwachen päppeln. So einfach ist das.
- “One of the many strengths of Mody’s book is its detailed historical narrative of how the tragedy unfolded; how a half-baked French vision of currency co-ordination was effectively forced into being by the arrogant German Chancellor Helmut Kohl; how the advice of a multitude of experts, who very warned precisely about the currency disaster that ultimately materialised in 2010, was overridden by reckless political calculation and irresponsible utopianism; how bad economics and cowardice by policymakers in the crisis made the situation worse; how a project supposed to bring the peoples of Europe closer together ended up forcing them apart.” – bto: Ein echtes Desaster, anders kann man es nicht bezeichnen.
