> Q: Some expect Europe and Japan to relieve the US as engines of global
> growth...
>
> I don't believe it'll happen. Japan is too small and has its own internal
> demand
> problems. Europe is too divided and too influenced by the German financial
> culture
> of monetary restriction. Europe's biggest problem is a monetary policy
> that
> restricts consumer demand and growth.
>
>
From today's Wall Street Journal (Outlook column, filed from Davos):
"The European Central Bank, also posed to raise rates soon, has an even tougher task: Is it time to take the foot off the monetary gas pedal? Or should it try the Greenspan experiment and test the limits? ECB officials quietly ask their U.S. counterparts: What led you to believe the speed limit on the economy had been raised? Explaining to foreigners how Greenspan sniffs and touches the economy is impossible. But ony some of the preconditions to the Greenspan experiment -- deregulation, emasculated unions, restructured companies -- exist in Europe."
In other words, strangle the economy until such time as the neoliberal model is adopted.
Seth