Nearly four years after the start of the global financial crisis, many are wondering why economic recovery is taking so long. Indeed, its sluggishness has confounded even the experts.& According to the International Monetary Fund, the world economy should have grown by 4.4% in 2011, and should grow by 4.5% in 2012. In fact, the latest figures from the World Bank indicate that growth reached just 2.7% in 2011, and will slow this year to 2.5% – a figure that may well need to be revised downwards.
There are two possible reasons for the discrepancy between forecast and outcome. Either the damage caused by the financial crisis was more serious than people realized, or the economic medicine prescribed was less efficacious than policymakers believed.
In fact, the gravity of the banking crisis was quickly grasped....Read the rest at Project Syndicate
Down with Debt Weight
by Robert Skidelsky | Professor Emeritus of Political Economy, Warwick University
Favorite line: "...the eurozone itself is a mini-gold standard, with heavily indebted members unable to devalue their currencies, because they have no currencies to devalue."
Robert Skidelsky's mentions of arguments re debt cancellation:
ReplyDelete- John Geanakoplos of Yale University has been arguing for big debt write-offs.)
- In 1918, Keynes urged the cancelation of inter-Allied debts arising from World War I. “We shall never be able to move again, unless we can free our limbs from these paper shackles,”
reinforce arguments Michael Hudson has been mentioning for several years. TPTB seem to be so obsessed with their successes with fraudulent activites that they don't appear to be interested in responding to hints.