"At the outset of the creation of the euro in 1999, it was expected that the southern eurozone economies would behave like those in the north; the Italians would behave like Germans. They didn’t," Greenspan said. "Instead, northern Europe fell into subsidizing southern Europe’s excess consumption, that is, its current account deficits."
Greenspan predicts that as the south's fiscal crisis deepens, the flow of goods from the north will stop altogether and southern Europe's standard of living will go down.
"The effect of the divergent cultures in the eurozone has been grossly underestimated," he added. "The only way to have several currencies from divergent nations lumped together is if they are culturally close, such as Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. If they aren’t, it simply can’t continue to work."
Greenspan feels that, to a very large extent, what’s driving the United States at the moment is Europe. "Today, there is one single integrated global stock market," he said.
2004 sa Alan:
“Not only have individual financial institutions become less vulnerable to shocks from underlying risk factors, but also the financial system as a whole has become more resilient.”
Han sa också detta om derivat 2003:
“What we have found over the years in the marketplace is that derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn’t be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so. We think it would be a mistake to more deeply regulate the contracts."
Ibland ska väl även Alan ha rätt i något även om man kanske till och med kan påstå att europrojektet misslyckats för länge sedan.
Greenspan har en Ipad, påpekar han i intervjun. Jag önskar att dom hade frågat vilka hans favoritappar är.
