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On the other hand, the "serious" people like yourself around here seem to to advance policies that center around either printing more money

Give the man a cookie.

During a depression, you print more money and spend it to defend output levels. This has been known at least since the first serious study of the Long Depression.

Every Euro in debt needs to be paid for, each year, in interest,

No, the ECB is free to set the policy rate to 0 %, so that's just plain false.

The German federal government in 2001 already spent more than 16% of its budget only to pay interest alone

Completely meaningless figure. The only internationally comparable figure is the one for the consolidated government. Eurostat has it, why aren't you using it?

But, apparently, the leading debaters around here want nothing more than bring the whole of Europe to that point, into a deadly spiral of debt, inflation, bankruptcy and collapse.

The Eurozone is definitionally solvent in its own currency, the Euro. The Eurozone has balanced foreign accounts, and can therefore not become insolvent in foreign currency in the foreseeable future.

The Eurozone therefore cannot go bankrupt. Full stop. End of story. Claiming that the Eurozone can go bankrupt is a lie.

And I don't give a shit about your neurotic inflation phobia. 6-8 % inflation is a good thing.

There are good arguments to point to issues that need solving; and the trade imbalance in Europe is certainly one of them. But as long as the policy prescriptions from "theorists like you" (to quote your own expression) only consist of money printing and transfer payments, you should not be surprised to be treated the way you are.

Higher inflation in Germany is the only way to solve the trade imbalances without breaking the Eurozone or introducing transfer payments. Transfer payments is the only way to solve the trade imbalances without higher inflation in Germany or breaking the Eurozone.

If you want neither transfer payments nor higher inflation in Germany, then, by elimination, you want to break the Eurozone.

Because the rules of addition and subtraction are not amenable to political compromise.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Feb 18th, 2012 at 03:40:16 AM EST
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