Why is it that neither the European nor the American central bankers feel any urgency to alleviate the pain of all the unemployed people on both continents, but they’re quite ready to bail out banks?
Put all of this together and you get a picture of a European policy elite always ready to spring into action to defend the banks, but otherwise completely unwilling to admit that its policies are failing the people the economy is supposed to serve.
Still, are we much better? America’s near-term outlook isn’t quite as dire as Europe’s, but the Federal Reserve’s own forecasts predict low inflation and very high unemployment for years to come — precisely the conditions under which the Fed should be leaping into action to boost the economy. But the Fed won’t move.
This is not going to end well.
Three paragraphs in:
Just to be clear, Spanish banks did indeed need a bailout.
Um, no. They needed liquidation, but the Eurocrats couldn’t handle that because it would precipitate the collapse of the Eurozone, and we Can’t Have That.
Yes. If you take it as read that the European Central Bank wants to keep the Euro alive, and I think we can assume that, then bailing out the Spanish banks had to be done.