Samizdata

Paul Krugman:

“Although Europe’s leaders continue to insist that the problem is too much spending in debtor nations, the real problem is too little spending in Europe as a whole.”

Let us fisk this:

“The story so far: In the years leading up to the 2008 crisis, Europe, like America, had a runaway banking system and a rapid buildup of debt. In Europe’s case, however, much of the lending was across borders, as funds from Germany flowed into southern Europe. This lending was perceived as low risk. Hey, the recipients were all on the euro, so what could go wrong?”

Nice piece of snark, which I do not demur from.

“For the most part, by the way, this lending went to the private sector, not to governments. Only Greece ran large budget deficits during the good years; Spain actually had a surplus on the eve of the crisis.”

That may be true. I have not checked. However, the fact that Spain’s public finances went down the toilet so fast does not quite suggest that the Spanish public sector was a model of mean-minded prudence.

“Then the bubble burst. Private spending in the debtor nations fell sharply. And the question European leaders should have been asking was how to keep those spending cuts from causing a Europe-wide downturn.”

No, they should have been facing up to the fact that a vast number of mal-investments were caused by a decade of under-priced credit, and that there was no way that such a build-up of bad investments can be unwound painlessly. Seeking to hold off the pain by increasing public spending (and hence scaring the hell out of the global bond market) is hardly likely to achieve the desired effect.

“During the years of easy money, wages and prices in southern Europe rose substantially faster than in northern Europe. This divergence now needs to be reversed, either through falling prices in the south or through rising prices in the north. And it matters which: If southern Europe is forced to deflate its way to competitiveness, it will both pay a heavy price in employment and worsen its debt problems. The chances of success would be much greater if the gap were closed via rising prices in the north.”

That may be true in crudely political terms; after having enjoyed the fat years, those who have done so are not likely to enjoy a lean period. However…

“But to close the gap through rising prices in the north, policy makers would have to accept temporarily higher inflation for the euro area as a whole. And they’ve made it clear that they won’t. Last April, in fact, the European Central Bank began raising interest rates, even though it was obvious to most observers that underlying inflation was, if anything, too low.”

Well, it seems a bit glib to assume, as Keynesians like Professor Krugman do, that the inflation will prove to be temporary… Riiiight… One key problem for the eurozone, as he ought to know, is that labour markets in much of the region are so heavily regulated that getting a meaningful adjustment in wages and prices is hard, and yet this has to happen if countries such as Greece and Germany are to co-exist under the same currency area without strife. The same issue, of course, would apply if the whole region were to adopt, say, an inelastic system of real money instead of fiat money issued by a central bank or banks.

Another point for Professor Krugman to remember is that in some member nations, such as France, there has been double-digit percent unemployment for the young long before anyone had heard about sub-prime or credit crunches. And Europe’s record for wealth and job creation, compared to that of the US prior to the crunch, has been and remains lamentable.