Tumbling markets, anxieties over the viability of banks and differences over austerity show that the crisis in the eurozone is still very much with usSince the banking crash, Europe has been engaged in a long drawn out process of trying to shove a problem under the carpet, pat down the lumps and hope no one notices. This is the settlement that is being tested this autumn. What we are seeing at the moment are the first tremors, notably spiralling borrowing costs for Athens. But the worry is that these tremors will get stronger and combine in a toxic way with other problems. The outlook for the US and the UK is now cloudier than it has been at any time in the past three years, yet the US central bank is said to be about to end its quantitative easing regime of flooding banks with cheap money. That may be postponed, but an end must come sooner or later. Chinas economy is slowing down, Japans is immobile. The Bank of Englands chief economist, Andy Haldane, said this week: Put in plain English, I am gloomier... This implies interest rates could remain lower for longer, certainly than I had expected three months ago, without endangering the inflation target.It is worth recalling that the roots of this crisis lie in a German squeeze on wages, intended to maintain German competitiveness in the global economy, which led to southern Europe becoming uncompetitive in comparison. The difference was largely made up by banks in France and Germany and northern Europe then lending to the south so that the Spanish and the Greeks could keep buying their BMWs and Mieles. When southern European governments could no longer borrow from world markets, the big banks of northern Europe stood to go bust. Continue reading...
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