Krugman e gli euroscettici

Sul New York Times oggi Krugman si toglie qualche sassolino dalla scarpa:

Not that long ago, European economists used to mock their American counterparts for having questioned the wisdom of Europe’s march to monetary union. “On the whole,” declared an article published just this past January, “the euro has, thus far, gone much better than many U.S. economists had predicted.”

Oops. The article summarized the euro-skeptics’ views as having been: “It can’t happen, it’s a bad idea, it won’t last.” Well, it did happen, but right now it does seem to have been a bad idea for exactly the reasons the skeptics cited. And as for whether it will last — suddenly, that’s looking like an open question.

To understand the euro-mess — and its lessons for the rest of us — you need to see past the headlines. Right now everyone is focused on public debt, which can make it seem as if this is a simple story of governments that couldn’t control their spending. But that’s only part of the story for Greece, much less for Portugal, and not at all the story for Spain.(...)

What’s the nature of the trap? During the years of easy money, wages and prices in the crisis countries rose much faster than in the rest of Europe. Now that the money is no longer rolling in, those countries need to get costs back in line.

But that’s a much harder thing to do now than it was when each European nation had its own currency. (...) 

So is the euro itself in danger? In a word, yes. If European leaders don’t start acting much more forcefully, providing Greece with enough help to avoid the worst, a chain reaction that starts with a Greek default and ends up wreaking much wider havoc looks all too possible.

Meanwhile, what are the lessons for the rest of us?

The deficit hawks are already trying to appropriate the European crisis, presenting it as an object lesson in the evils of government red ink. What the crisis really demonstrates, however, is the dangers of putting yourself in a policy straitjacket. When they joined the euro, the governments of Greece, Portugal and Spain denied themselves the ability to do some bad things, like printing too much money; but they also denied themselves the ability to respond flexibly to events.

And when crisis strikes, governments need to be able to act. That’s what the architects of the euro forgot — and the rest of us need to remember.

Sempre sul NYTimes potete leggere un'analisi del ruolo dell'Europa nella crisi.

Il Sole 24 Ore dedica in prima pagina due commenti alla crisi europea innescata dalla Grecia. Da un lato si invoca senza remore l'espulsione della Grecia dall'Eurozona, dall'altro si invoca addirittura Freud e la sua analisi dell'isteria adolescenziale per spiegare la crisi....: Freud introduce il concetto di bugia primaria in rapporto all'isteria: «Ogni adolescente deve portare in sé il germe dell'isteria» e «delle condizioni determinanti della bugia originaria». E forse questa patologia dell'euro è davvero un problema di immaturità.