{"id":295994,"date":"2010-02-08T17:13:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T22:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"e2249889-c78b-43e3-9643-b1d7d4aa587b:393254"},"modified":"2010-02-08T17:13:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-08T22:13:00","slug":"let-inflation-rip-save-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/295994","title":{"rendered":"Let inflation rip, save Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How should the European Union help out Greece? By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/international\/europe\/0,1518,675196,00.html\" >letting inflation rip<\/a>, says Thomas Straubhaar, president of the HWWI economic institute in Hamburg, Germany.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>Allowing inflation to soar would reduce the real burden of the huge nominal debts that have been run up by Greece and other European countries. Of course, diluting the euro might be seen as a desperate remedy to these countries\u2019 problems, but, as Straubhaar points out, there are no good options in this predicament. <\/p>\n<p>If the EU helps Greece, it will be forced to bail out other indebted nations, such as Portugal and Spain. A series of such bailouts would be hugely expensive and would punish European countries that have lived within their means. German taxpayers in particular would be enraged at the prospect of paying higher taxes to subsidize pensions for Greek civil servants.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, if the EU does nothing, the disparities in living standards among European nations will grow larger. Hopes for closer integration will be smashed. And that may result in more discord in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Straubhaar adds that the extra benefit of allowing higher inflation is that it would cause the euro to depreciate further. That would provide an extra boost to European exporters. <\/p>\n<p>But Straubhaar\u2019s proposal also raises the question of what happens if other countries decide to follow a similar policy. U.S. homeowners, for instance, might welcome an outburst of inflation that would wipe away part of the real cost of their mortgages. <\/p>\n<p><i>Freelance business journalist Ian McGugan blogs for the Financial Post.<\/i>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/network.nationalpost.com\/np\/aggbug.aspx?PostID=393254\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How should the European Union help out Greece? By letting inflation rip, says Thomas Straubhaar, president of the HWWI economic institute in Hamburg, Germany.&nbsp;Allowing inflation to soar would reduce the real burden of the huge nominal debts that have been run up by Greece and other European countries. Of course, diluting the euro might be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4060,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}