BELIEVE IT OR NOT: «Nine People Who Saw the Greek Crisis Coming Years Before Everyone Else Did»

«What happens if a whole country—a potential ‘region’ in a fully integrated community—suffers a structural setback? So long as it is a sovereign state, it can devalue its currency. It can then trade successfully at full employment provided its people accept the necessary cut in their real incomes. With an economic and monetary union, this recourse is obviously barred, and its prospect is grave indeed unless federal budgeting arrangements are made which fulfil a redistributive role. ...»
Wynne Godley, British economist, 1992

«They will say that we are subsidizing scroungers, lounging in cafés on the Mediterranean beaches. Monetary union, in the end, will result in a gigantic blackmailing operation. When we Germans demand monetary discipline, other countries will blame their financial woes on that same discipline, and by extension, on us. More, they will perceive us as a kind of economic policeman. We risk once again becoming the most hated in Europe.»
Arnulf Baring, German political scientist, 1997

«In other words, market forces can demand pro-cyclical fiscal policy during a recession, compounding recessionary influences. … Even if there were no imposed limits on countries’ deficits and national debts, the structure of the EMU makes it nearly impossible for a country to enact a counter-cyclical fiscal policy even if there were the political will.»
Mathew Forstater, economist, 1999

«I think the euro is in its honeymoon phase. I hope it succeeds, but I have very low expectations for it. I think that differences are going to accumulate among the various countries and that non-synchronous shocks are going to affect them.»
Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate, 2000

«... Creditors are aware that statistical data presented by the Greek government have nothing to do with reality ...»
Costas Simitis, former Greek Prime Minister, 2008

«Until something is done to enable member states to avert these financial constraints (e.g. political union and the establishment of a federal [EU] budget or the establishment of a new lending institution, designed to aid member states in pursuing a broad set of policy objectives), the prospects for stabilization in the Eurozone appear grim.»
Stephanie Bell Kelton, economist, 2002

«We had arguments which might persuade both the Germans — who would be worried about the weakening of anti-inflation policies — and the poorer countries — who must be told that they would not be bailed out of the consequences of a single currency, which would therefore devastate their inefficient economies.»
Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1990

«Only the inevitable, currently prohibited, direct intervention of the ECB will be capable of performing the resurrection, and from the ashes of that fallen flaming star an immortal sovereign currency will no doubt emerge.»
Warren Mosler, economist, 2001

«As currently designed, the EMU will have a central bank (the ECB) but it will not have any fiscal branch. This would be much like a US which operated with a Fed, but with only individual state treasuries. It will be as if each EMU member country were to attempt to operate fiscal policy in a foreign currency; deficit spending will require borrowing in that foreign currency according to the dictates of private markets.»
L. Randall Wray, economist 1998

Fonte: BloombergBusiness