Pages

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Greece’s real tragedy is that it’s just the second act in a ‘crisis trilogy’ threatening the rest of the world

Even as the country turns out to the polls this weekend, financial disasters, or the potential for them, are starting to appear in countries all over the globe As Greece goes to the polls on Sunday, with Alexis Tsipras once again fighting for his political life, all eyes will be on the recession-scarred nation and the fragile truce it has struck with its eurozone creditors. Whatever the outcome, fresh spending cuts and further economic misery look unavoidable. But Greece’s tragedy, which is far from over, is playing out against the background of a simmering crisis in the global economy. Indeed, if the Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, is worth listening to – which he almost invariably is – Greece’s travails are merely one part of the long-running financial and economic crisis that has rippled around the world since the US investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed seven years ago. On this analysis, the Federal Reserve’s decision to delay its long-planned interest rate rise last Thursday is another part of the same unsettling picture. Continue reading...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com