Incompetence in Europe

I fully endorse Krugman’s point here:

These alleged technocrats have in fact systematically ignored both textbook macroeconomics and the lessons of history in favor of fantasies. The European Central Bank has placed its faith in the confidence fairy, while imagining that it can run policy in a way that has never worked in several centuries of central bank experience. Meanwhile, the European policy elite has simply wished away the clear evidence that the euro zone needs to make an adjustment that is virtually impossible unless inflation targets are raised.

Not only are we seeing why the Euro was a silly idea in technical terms – we are seeing how endemic policy failure can be in places like Europe.

Seriously, the vast majority of economists knew that we just needed the ECB to act as a lender of last resort, and for the default in Greece (and policy changes in the rest of the PIIGS) to be determined in a reasonable amount of time – instead we’ve seen failure from both monetary and fiscal authorities around the region.  Embarrassing failure.