Parked quote
This is really insightful. Unfortunately it's split over several tweets starting from https://twitter.com/JWMason1/status/612960543524065280 , so I'm parking it here for my future reference.
(JW Mason is a reasonably credentialled economist, http://slackwire.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-j-w-mason.html )
"Greece" is simply the label currently put on the underlying contradictions of euro project. Whether Greece "exits" or not, project remains allowing unlimited financial flows based on unanchored expectations of financial markets and then demanding that real productive activity and standards of living adjust to accommodate. And, since this would destroy society, stabilizing system with offsetting public flows, on conditions set by unaccountable authorities.
Something similar was going to be in my "Herald of Free Enterprise" thing that I never got around to writing. The argument was that the "Four freedoms" of the EU (people, goods, services and capital) suffer from both pooling effects (capital accumulates, people and businesses cluster into megacities) and sloshing effects (capital flight, migrations of young people to find work leaving pensions unsustainable). The difference is like that between the open car deck of a RORO ferry and the sealed bulkheads of other ships: useful, but much easier to capsize and sink. While the ongoing Greece discussion is basically that the steerage passengers should not be allowed onto the first class deck despite the rising water levels as they haven't paid for the tickets. The Greek negotiating team have realised that their only negotiating card is a threat to scuttle the ship.
We're several years into "final, final deadlines". Eventually one of them really will be final, but there's no way to know in advance if this will be it.
(JW Mason is a reasonably credentialled economist, http://slackwire.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-j-w-mason.html )
"Greece" is simply the label currently put on the underlying contradictions of euro project. Whether Greece "exits" or not, project remains allowing unlimited financial flows based on unanchored expectations of financial markets and then demanding that real productive activity and standards of living adjust to accommodate. And, since this would destroy society, stabilizing system with offsetting public flows, on conditions set by unaccountable authorities.
Something similar was going to be in my "Herald of Free Enterprise" thing that I never got around to writing. The argument was that the "Four freedoms" of the EU (people, goods, services and capital) suffer from both pooling effects (capital accumulates, people and businesses cluster into megacities) and sloshing effects (capital flight, migrations of young people to find work leaving pensions unsustainable). The difference is like that between the open car deck of a RORO ferry and the sealed bulkheads of other ships: useful, but much easier to capsize and sink. While the ongoing Greece discussion is basically that the steerage passengers should not be allowed onto the first class deck despite the rising water levels as they haven't paid for the tickets. The Greek negotiating team have realised that their only negotiating card is a threat to scuttle the ship.
We're several years into "final, final deadlines". Eventually one of them really will be final, but there's no way to know in advance if this will be it.