I have enormous respect for Martin Wolf, as he knows, and never miss a single one of his brilliant and indispensable columns. Indeed, I appreciate his responding, as did Paul Krugman and Joe Wiesenthal, to my recent FT article on the origins of recent eurozone austerity programs.
In further responding, let me emphasize that my argument is not pro-austerity or anti-austerity. Not at all. Rather, the main point which I tried to make is that financial markets originally pushed austerity onto the weaker nations, not politicians. A careful review of the timeline in this eurozone financial crisis bears this out.
Continue reading »