First of all, I have to start with my father's opinion that "No two economists can agree on anything". As an economist himself he had a healthy degree of scepticism on the subject.
I appreciate that Mr Worstall is having to tackle a wide subject in a short article, but even then, there seem to be a few short cuts in his article.
The statement that "low interest rates screwed Ireland" seems to be one of those shortcuts. I thought it was Ireland taking advantage of those low interest rates without any thought of the future that screwed them. Note what I've done there. I've made the responsibility for Ireland's economic woes their responsibility not, as the article suggests .. Germany's or the EU's.
Similarly, I thought that Greece's problem was that they cooked the books and hid several bad debts in order to look as if their economy was sufficiently sound to join the EU. Similarly to Ireland, they took advantage of easy money and then found they couldn't pay when things got tough.
The idea that an area is too large for a single currency should also be challenged. What is required is that that area has to appreciate that the rich will subsidise the poor. As a regular reader of the London Evening Standard (I live in the Midlands but pick up the occasional discarded paper) I am often amused by the attitude of "why are we paying our wealth to those poor people up North?". The problem at the moment with Greece appears to be that Germany has the same attitude ... except that it's the poor lot down south they object to.
However, as always an interesting thought provoking article ... as long as you appreciate that Mr Worstall is not necessarily right!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
