Overmatched
Wolfgang Munchau suggests that we need a German word — ueberfordert — to describe the condition of Europe right now. I think he’s wrong about the lack of an English equivalent; “overmatched” seems fairly close. European leaders, and the European system, just seem not up to dealing with the crisis.
But then, who in the West is? It has been 22 months since I gave vent to a growing sense of despair about the US response; events have not, I’m sorry to say, proved me wrong.
One thing that is peculiarly distressing to people like me, by the way, is the determination of key players to rewrite history. Wolfgang Schaeuble tells us that “deficits were one of the main reasons for the crisis”; in what universe? Ireland and Spain were running surpluses on the eve of the crisis; the US crisis was clearly driven by private-sector, not public-sector debt; unless you define the crisis entirely in terms of Greece, this makes no sense at all.
So we’re ueberfordert, both in terms of will and in terms of intellectual clarity.
Update: And no, deficits were not behind the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. Again, Ireland and Spain began running deficits only after the bust; it was the runaway banks and the private-sector bubbles that did it
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