Un peu de Krugman sur la Grèce

Mesure-t-on réellement l'effort fait par la Grèce pour s'ajuster ? Savez--vous que la baisse de PIB est équivalente à l'Allemagne de Weimar de l'après première guerre mondiale ?

• Comparative Austerity : l'effort réel d'austérité de la Grèce

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• Un argument qui me tient à coeur : "Try to talk about macroeconomics, and you’re sure to encounter accusations that your policies would turn us into Weimar Germany; those wheelbarrows full of cash remain the ultimate bogeymen for many, despite years of being wrong about everything. As some of us have noted, however, there’s a peculiar selectivity in the use of Weimar as cautionary tale: it’s always about the hyperinflation of 1923, never about the deflationary effects of the gold standard and austerity in 1930-32, which is, you know, what brought you-know-who to power." (my emphasis)

CreditMaddison Project, Eurostat

Austerity, it turns out, has devastated Greece just about as much as defeat in total war devastated imperial Germany. The idea of demanding that this economy triple the size of its primary surplus is … disturbing.

From : Weimar and Greece, Continued

• Greece’s Excess Burden

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The attached figure shows what was supposed to happen to Greek GDP according to the original 2010 request for a stand-by arrangement – that is, the original austerity-and-internal-devaluation plan — compared with what actually happened. There’s little question that the huge shortfall reflects the adverse effects of austerity, which the IMF admits it greatly understated.