07-24-2015, 10:48 PM
If Mr. Tsipras was an idealistic young radical six months ago, dedicated to the overthrow of the Greek establishment and austerity policies, he is emerging from the showdown with the creditors as something else entirely: a popular, canny and pragmatic politician with a stake in the success of the very measures he came to power vowing to eradicate.
Alexis Tsipras transforms himself as he sells Greek bailout terms
In its latest assessment of Germany's economic strength, even the IMF (seen in many German circles as chief disciplinarian against the errant Greeks) urged Berlin to carry out "more ambitious action ... and contribute to global rebalancing, particularly in the euro area."
It's time for Germany to leave the eurozone - Business Insider
A measure of the economy's position in relation to the rest of the world, Germany's current account hit a euro-area record of 7.9%, or €215 billion, in 2014. It is now expected to hit more than 8% of gross domestic product this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
It's time for Germany to leave the eurozone - Business Insider
Not the Germans. In late 2008, Peer Steinbrück, an SPD member, and Germany’s then-finance minister, denounced Gordon Brown’s stimulus package, saying “the switch from decades of supply-side politics all the way to a crass Keynesianism is breathtaking.” Early the next year, under the watch of Steinbrück, Germany launched its own €50 billion stimulus package, amidst much “wailing and gnashing of teeth” in the Bundestag.[1] But this brief encounter with Keynesian fiscal policy was an aberration. Throughout the financial crisis and subsequent Euro crisis—and in fact throughout much of it postwar history—Germany has been obsessively focused on fiscal restraint, lest it lead to inflation.
Why German Economic Thought Made the Greek Crisis Inevitable – Tropics of Meta
Greece's most influential think tank warned on Thursday of a sharp drop back into recession in a report that came hours after parliament approved a second package of reform measures aimed at securing a new bailout from international lenders. In its quarterly report, the IOBE institute said that capital controls imposed last month to stop a bank run pushing the financial system into collapse would exact a heavy toll across the economy.
Greece faces recession warning as bailout talks set to open | Reuters
It's more-or-less universally agreed that if Greece still had its own currency, devaluation could help the country recover from its current economic depression. It's also agreed that, lamentably, this is not possible without Grexit. But there may be a way. Consider: devaluation works by raising the prices of imports (in the local currency) while reducing the prices of exports (in foreign currency). That is, a devaluation acts like a tariff -- a positive tax on imported goods and services and a negative tax (i.e. a subsidy) on exports. Do you know what else acts like tariffs? Tariffs.
Mean Squared Errors: Easier than you think: How to devalue the Greek Euro