A blog on the political, economic and social causes and implications of the crisis in the Southern periphery of the Eurozone.

I'm a political scientist working on political parties and elections, social and economic policy and political corruption, with a particular focus on Italy and Spain. For more details on my work, see CV here, and LSE homepage here. For media or consultancy enquiries, please email J.R.Hopkin@lse.ac.uk.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

That sinking feeling

Global growth fears sink world stocks - FT.com:

Irony of ironies: this is probably our best bet for a policy change in the right direction. Ultimately, markets do want austerity, but in the Augustinian sense: they also want growth, and if growth requires printing money and running deficits, they want that too. Just not printing money and running deficits in currencies they're holding.

If investors show their lack of confidence in a policy that is designed purely to give them confidence, then policy change is the only response that makes any sense.