Thousands of Greeks protest outside parliament on Sunday, 6 June 2011, against a fresh austerity package agreed in return for the country’s second bail-out in 13 months by the European Union and International Monetary Fund. via infiniteunknown.net

By Arnab Das and Nouriel Roubini
2 April 2012  The European Central Bank has averted disaster, sparking a powerful relief rally – but nothing fundamental has been resolved. Greece may need another debt restructuring; Portugal and Ireland may need restructuring too. Spain and Italy may yet come under the gun. Banking crises are hardly ever resolved without removing toxic assets or recapitalisation. The eurozone still lacks essential features of monetary unions that have stood the test of time; and planned reforms may exacerbate latent fiscal, banking and external imbalances, leaving it less, rather than more, resilient to regional shocks. Splitting up may be hard to do, but it can be better than sticking to a bad marriage. The periphery debt crisis threatens to engulf the core in huge bank capital shortfalls and fiscal liabilities, trapping both in protracted stagnation. This reflects possibly intractable eurozone design flaws. So we propose the following amicable divorce settlement. Countries leaving the eurozone must rebalance away from growth led by debt, towards export- and income-led growth. Members of a “rump” eurozone should rebalance toward domestic demand. The EU free trade arrangement is critical to this end. Ideally, five distressed peripherals – Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain – would exit, negotiating bridge financing. […] We have divorce laws because amicable divorce is better for all concerned than enduring the chronic depressions that accompany bad marriages. The eurozone should devise plans for orderly exit sooner rather than later, because delaying often makes break-up more costly.

A Divorce Settlement for the Eurozone

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