"Europe and the US are hopelessly over-indebted. The crisis that started in the US real estate sector in 2007 has devastated state finances on both sides of the Atlantic and is threatening to wreck the euro and trigger a second global downturn. The world lacks the political leadership needed to end the turmoil"
The fear is back, in the stock exchanges and in the capitals of the industrial nations. There are growing signs everywhere of a new financial crisis, and the political leaders of the West are looking helpless and out of their depth.
The United States is struggling with an enormous budget deficit. And the euro zone's central bankers and government leaders can't find a strategy to end the permanent malaise of their single currency. The White House has achieved little more than to buy some time with a new debt compromise reached after theatrical political squabbling between Democrats and Republicans. Last Friday night, rating agency Standard & Poor's lowered its rating for the US from AAA to AA+.
Muddling through, postponing, playing down -- the motto of the crisis managers on both sides of the Atlantic has sent alarm bells ringing in stock markets. Britain'sEconomist magazine is warning of a double-dip recession in the US, a second downturn just three years after the last one. Many economists have been pointing out that last week's panic resembled the fear that swept financial markets after the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008.
Then as now, banks stopped lending each money. Then as now, banks' cash deposits at the central bank doubled within days. The European Central Bank reacted by assuring banks of unlimited liquidity in the coming months. It was an emergency measure that led to short-term relief but sparked anxious questions among bankers and stock market players. How long can the central bank keep up its market-soothing liquidity operations before it finally loses its credibility, the most important asset of a central bank? Is the financial crisis about to escalate? And will the world then be bankrupt?
It was less than three years ago that the global economy inched towards the abyss after the US real estate bubble burst. In order to save their over-indebted banks and insurance companies, Western governments borrowed huge sums of money themselves. They nationalized banks and implemented vast stimulus programs, while central banks flooded the economy with cheap money.
As former German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück put it, "fire was fought with fire"............READ MORE
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