Hence my confusion. There are a bunch of questions really: what was the primary cause(s) of the crisis that Greece et al find themselves in? To what extent did they bring this upon themselves? How much of German motivation in the formation of the Eurozone was farsighted interest in global good as opposed to nearsighted self-interest? How much are Germany and France to blame for the state of Greece, Spain, others (PIGS?), today? What can be done to help the PIGS (let’s make that SPIGs) today? By Germany?
If I understand them correctly, Dan Davies sees the problem as self-created, if not by SPIG citizenry, then by the ruling classes (the same MIT-educated suits that sit on either side of the table, to quote Davies). He sort of agrees (a bit) that the Eurozone was setup a bit unfavourably (w.r.t democracy) but also notes that Germany has done quite a bit for Eastern Europe, etc, and the current situation is really caused by Greek insistence on “sovereignty”. Doug seems to take the view that austerity does not solve the problem, that Germany, whose actions were not the late 20th century Marshall Plan, needs to lift its boot off the necks of SPIG, so on.
I am also trying to understand the basics here… what could Germany do? Debt cancellation? Have the ECB print and inject more cash into the SPIGs rather than into German/French banks? I remember Y.Varoufakis [sp?] on BTN saying that there is already a Greek deal involving a 70% haircut for bondholders… what more can be done? Can Spain and Greece take the Argentina route? The guy from the think tank (Mark Weisbrot, I think?!) seemed to think so on BTN, but Doug says YV doesn’t think so.
A lot of questions, I am afraid.
—ravi