Resolving a debt crisis involves nothing more than assigning the losses. In the current crisis these costs have to be assigned to different economic sectors within Europe, but to the extent that the assignation of costs can be characterized as exercises in national cost allocation, it is easy to turn an economic conflict into a national conflict. - d☭snake

Most currency and sovereign debt crises in modern history ultimately represent a conflict over how the costs are to be assigned among two different groups. On the one hand are creditors, owners of real estate and other assets, and the businesses who benefit from the existing currency distortions. One the other hand are workers who pay in the form of low wages and unemployment and, eventually, middle class household savers and taxpayers who pay in the form of a gradual erosion of their income or of the value of their savings. - d☭snake

(correggi il link) - Elvis Presley

Until now, an awful lot of Europeans have understood the crisis primarily in terms of differences in national character, economic virtue, and as a moral struggle between prudence and irresponsibility. This interpretation is intuitively appealing but it is almost wholly incorrect, and because the cost of saving Europe is debt forgiveness, and Europe must decide if this is a cost worth paying (I think it is), to the extent that the European crisis is seen as a struggle between the prudent countries and the irresponsible countries, it is extremely unlikely that Europeans will be willing to pay the cost. - d☭snake

(boh chissa` che era successo, l'avevo copincollato, cmq ora mi pare che vada) - d☭snake

(ho ricontrollato, il link va, perche` mi snobbate quest'articolo? uff uff) - d☭snake

This is because there are monetary and economic conditions under which liability structure matters much more, and conditions under which it matters much less. Economists and the policymakers they advise are too quick to ignore these differences, perhaps because there is not as well-formulated an understanding of balance sheets in economics theory as in finance theory, so that when someone like Yanis Varoufakis proposes that there are ways in which partial debt forgiveness increases overall economic value, instead of merely creating moral hazard, worried economists often recoil in horror, while finance or bankruptcy specialists (and an awful lot of hedge fund managers) shrug their shoulders at such an obvious statement. [ecco e` la stessa impressione che ho avuto: la finanza, la city, ha reagito bene alle proposte greche perche` dal loro punto di vista non sono niente di drammatico] - d☭snake

la city ha reagito bene perchè il primo bailout ha levato le perdite alle banche dove avrebbero potuto creare problemi sistemici (fallimenti bancari) e le ha neutralizzate nei bilanci statali dove non possono fare danno, una goccia nel mare del debito pubblico europeo. Tutti sono a favore della cancellazione perhcè adesso il debito greco mette a rischio la moneta unica - Lorenzo R v rs

It was not the German people who lent money to the Spanish people. The policies implemented by Berlin that resulted in the huge swing in Germany’s current account from deficit in the 1990s to surplus in the 2000s were imposed at a cost to German workers, and have been at least partly responsible for Germany’s extremely low productivity growth — most of Germany’s growth before the crisis can be explained by the change in its current account — rather than by rising productivity. Moreover because German capital flows to Spain ensured that Spanish inflation exceeded German inflation, lending rates that may have been “reasonable” in Germany were extremely low in Spain, perhaps even negative in real terms. With German, Spanish, and other banks offering nearly unlimited amounts of extremely cheap credit to all takers in Spain, the fact that some of these borrowers were terribly irresponsible was not a Spanish “choice.” I am hesitant to introduce what may seem like class warfare, but if you separate those who benefitted the most from European policies before the crisis from those who befitted the least, and are now expected to pay the bulk of the adjustment costs, rather than posit a conflict between Germans and Spaniards, it might be far more accurate to posit a conflict between the business and financial elite on one side (along with EU officials) and workers and middle class savers on the other. This is a conflict among economic groups, in other words, and not a national conflict, although it is increasingly hard to prevent it from becoming a national conflict. - d☭snake

And this is a point that’s often missed in the popular debate. Over and over we hear — often, ironically, from those most committed to the idea of a Europe that transcends national boundaries — that Spain must bear responsibility for its actions and must repay what it owes to Germany. But there is no “Spain” and there is no “Germany” in this story. - d☭snake

Das scrivo commenti e cancello da 10 minuti, non è che snobbo l'articolo ma lo sento sbagliato e confuso in tanti modi - Lorenzo R v rs

spiega perche` invece a me pareva chiaro e ci sento echi di tante cose che ho gia` sentito altrove con in piu` il contesto storico che e` sempre affascinante - d☭snake

spè che mi sto rileggendo la parte storica delle reparations che mi piace un sacco - Lorenzo R v rs

mi irrita questo parlare di Spagna e Germania adesso come se fossero Francia e Germania ai tempi delle riparazioni del 1871 c'è un mondo di economia e finanza di differenza e anche di personificare grandezze macro in azioni tipo " German capital flows to Spain ensured that Spanish inflation exceeded German inflation". - Lorenzo R v rs

la situazione della francia nel 1873, raccogliere soldi senza problemi, è quella dei governi europei prima del 2007, il debito allora non preoccupava nessuno, dopo è raddoppiato e l'economia non lo regge più, il problema è il debito spagnolo ma poi si dimentica che il debito più grande in termini assoluti in europa è quello tedesco comunque al 60% del gdp - Lorenzo R v rs

penso di essere abbastanza sconnesso nei commenti, articolo bello nella parte storica ma che macello tutto il resto, troppo conflittuale e politico - Lorenzo R v rs

https://news.ycombinator.com/item... qui i commenti di hackernews - d☭snake

Matthew C Klein (--> http://ftalphaville.ft.com/meet-th...): «This is literally the best analysis of the euro area’s problems we’ve ever read». --> http://www.google.it/url... - Sei Dee già Pulp

(ne parlano anche su Repubblica... --> http://www.repubblica.it/economi...) - Sei Dee già Pulp