The Great Eurozone Disaster: From Crisis to Global New Deal (Economic Controversies)

The eurozone has lurched from crisis to calamity. With Greece, Portugal and Ireland driven to the brink of economic catastrophe, and the threat that other EU countries are soon to follow, the consequences for the global economy could be dire. In The Great Eurozone Disaster, Heikki Patomäki provides a captivating narrative about how Europe ended up in its present predicament and offers a radical new vision for 'democratic global Keynesianism' as the most viable way out of the current crisis. Read more... Content: Economic controversies; About the author; Title page; Copyright; Contents; Preface; 1 Introduction; Figure 1.1 William Hogarth's South Sea Scheme; Figure 1.2 The euro crisis and global economic processes; 2 The economic theory of debt crises; Necessary metaphors and misleading rhetoric; Economic paradoxes; Figure 2.1 An illustration of the whole-part fallacy; On money; Conclusions; 3 The predictability of global financial turmoil; What really happened?; Figure 3.1 In the early phases of every bubble, optimism runs high and those involved are typically convinced that their luck will hold. Figure 3.2 The development of housing and stock prices in the USA, 1987-2011How could this happen?; On extravagant saving and accumulation of debt; The speculative economy and the changing nature of debt; Table 3.1 The mutually reinforcing effects of financialization; Figure 3.3 Debt levels in the US economy, 1986-2011 (debt/%GDP); Figure 3.4 Debt levels in Finland, 1975-2010 (debt/%GDP); Two interpretations of late modern capitalism and its weaknesses; On the fast circulation of money and its consequences; Conclusions; 4 Contradictions at the heart of the EMU; An optimal currency area? Figure 4.1 Robert MundellThe causes of running into debt in the crisis countries; Figure 4.2 Average annual current account deficits and surpluses in twelve EMU countries, 2002-09 (%); Theories of money and problems of public finance in the EMU system; Circular reasoning and self-fulfilling prophecies; Figure 4.3 The public debt interest cycle; Figure 4.4 The circular reasoning of orthodox economic liberalism; Conclusions; 5 The trouble with the EU's official reform proposals; The European Stability Mechanism; Regulating financial markets: the financial transaction tax. Figure 5.1 The more likely the introduction of some form of financial transaction tax has become, the louder the finance industry in London and throughout the world has been in opposing it. Eurobonds and budgetary discipline; Assessing the proposals; 6 European futures; What grounds expectations about the EMU's future?; Table 6.1 Prognoses for the EU; Figure 6.1 The European debt crisis is still being handled through traditional state diplomacy; Three scenarios on the EU's future after the crisis; Table 6.2 The ideal-type social-democratic federal state; Conclusions. 7 How should debt crises be resolved?Lessons of German history: war debt and its consequences; Figure 7.1 A banknote for ten billion marks, October 1923; The 1953 London debt agreement; Learning from developing countries' debt problems; Table 7.1 The accumulation of phantom loans; Figure 7.2 Bono and German chancellor Angela Merkel; Debt arbitration mechanism; Requirements for debt settlement: undoing both mounting debt and financialization; Conclusions; 8 Towards democratic global Keynesianism. Abstract: The eurozone has lurched from crisis to calamity. With Greece, Portugal and Ireland driven to the brink of economic catastrophe, and the threat that other EU countries are soon to follow, the consequences for the global economy could be dire. In The Great Eurozone Disaster, Heikki Patomäki provides a captivating narrative about how Europe ended up in its present predicament and offers a radical new vision for 'democratic global Keynesianism' as the most viable way out of the current crisis

The last couple of years have seen the eurozone lurch from crisis to calamity. With Greece, Portugal and Ireland already driven to the brink of economic catastrophe, and the threat that a number of other EU countries are soon to follow, the consequences for the global economy are potentially dire. In The Great Eurozone Disaster, Heikki Patomäki dissects the current crisis, revealing its origins lie in the instability that has driven the process of financialisation since the early 1970s. Furthermore, the public debt crises in the European deficit countries have been aggravated rather than alleviated by the responses of the Commission and leaders of the surplus countries, especially Germany.Providing a captivating narrative about how Europe ended up in its present predicament, Patomäki presents a radical new vision for 'global economic democracy' as the only viable way out of the current crisis.

The last couple of years have seen the eurozone lurch from crisis to calamity. With Greece, Portugal and Ireland already driven to the brink of economic catastrophe, and the threat that a number of other EU countries are soon to follow, the consequences for the global economy are potentially dire. In The Great Eurozone Disaster , Heikki Patomäki dissects the current crisis, revealing its origins lie in the instability that has driven the process of financialisation since the early 1970s. Furthermore, the public debt crises in the European deficit countries have been aggravated rather than alleviated by the responses of the Commission and leaders of the surplus countries, especially Germany. Providing a captivating narrative about how Europe ended up in its present predicament, Patomäki presents a radical new vision for 'global economic democracy' as the only viable way out of the current crisis.