Comment, analysis and other offerings from Wednesday’s FT,
Analysis: Europe – an elusive debt resolution
European leaders have been drawn into one of the most agonised debates seen since the eurozone debt crisis erupted nearly two years ago. It has sowed confusion in financial markets and pushed borrowing costs for the third- and fourth-largest eurozone economies – Italy and Spain – to 6 per cent, levels some analysts believe are not sustainable, writes the FT’s Peter Spiegel.
Alan Beattie: Let Europe pay for its policy failures
And so the circus moves on. On Thursday the eurozone authorities, for want of a better term, will be meeting in Brussels for the thousandth iteration of their response to the Greek crisis, says the FT columnist. The run-up to the summit, which was supposed to design a second and much larger bail-out for Greece, has been sadly typical of Europe’s shambolic and convoluted policy process.
Philip Delves Broughton: Murdoch and a Tiger-mother masterclass
It was even more of a family affair than anyone anticipated. Rupert and James Murdoch were on the schedule for Tuesday’s House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Not so, Wendi Murdoch’s right fist, notes the author of ‘What They Teach You at Harvard Business School.’
John Kay: American lessons in how to run a single currency
In the 1990s, when European monetary union was a plan but not a reality, I would explain to students that the effect was to replace currency risk by credit risk, writes the FT columnist. Monetary union meant sovereign governments could no longer print money. That change put them in the same position as any other borrower: and substantially increased the likelihood of default.
The World: Revolting middle classes eclipse clash of civilisations
Where lies the world’s biggest source of instability?, asks the FT’s Gideon Rachman. For many, it is the “clash of civilizations”, an idea popularised by Samuel Hungtington, whereby people’s cultural and religious identities will remain the main source of conflict in the post-Cold War World. Yet, as Moises Naim, the former editor of Foreign Policy Magazine points out in a recent article , most conflicts have lately been within civilizations than between them.
The A-list: Ramachandra Guha – India is too corrupt to become a superpower
The sociologist Ashis Nandy once noted that “in India the choice could never be between chaos and stability, but between manageable and unmanageable chaos,” says historian Guha. He wrote this in the 1980s, a decade marked by ethnic strife, caste violence, and bloody religious riots. But it applies even more so to the India of today, and is being made worse by the steady deterioration and corruption of India’s ruling political elite.
The A-list: Jeffrey Sachs – Greece can restructure its debt without default
The Greek government is on the knife-edge of solvency, says the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Public debt is estimated to be around 160 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, of which around three quarters is owed to foreign creditors. We cannot be sure whether it can service its debts within the boundaries of political, social, and economic stability. But following from my previous article, I believe a route to Greek solvency is possible.