Europe's
deep economic malaise is the result of "deliberate" policy
choices made by EU elites, according to the former governor of the
Bank of England
Lord Mervyn
King continued his scathing assault on Europe's economic and monetary
union, having predicted the beleaguered currency zone will need to
be dismantled to free its weakest members from unremitting austerity
and record levels of unemployment.
Speaking at
the launch of his new book, Lord King said he could never have
envisaged an economic collapse of the depths of the 1930s returning
to Europe's shores in the modern age. But the fate of Greece since
2009 - which has suffered a contraction eclipsing the US depression
in the inter-war years - was an "appalling" example of
economic policy failure, he told an audience at the London School
of Economics.
[...]
Lord King -
who spent a decade fighting the worst financial crisis in history at
the Bank of England - has said the weakest eurozone members face
little choice but to return to their national currencies as "the
only way to plot a route back to economic growth and full
employment".
[...]
the European
Commission has defended itself against claims that punishing
austerity measures have made incumbent European regimes unelectable,
arguing that Brussels' economic policy represents a "virtuous
triangle" of austerity, structural reforms and investment.
Outside of
the eurozone, Lord King warned against undue pessimism about the
longer-term prospects for the world economy, dismissing the "secular
stagnation" thesis made popular in recent years by the likes of
US treasury secretary Larry Summers.
He said it
was a "serious mistake" to believe that productivity -
which has flatlined across the developed world since the crisis -
would never revive as technological development has been exhausted.
[...]
"The
thinking that all these ideas will not come through to have practical
ways of improving our living standards, seem extraordinarily
pessimistic and something for which there is no basis in fact at all
over the last 250 years of economic growth."
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