by Jonathan Todd
“If your action must be drastic, do it in one fell swoop, not in agonising stages”.
This was Isaiah Berlin’s interpretation of one of Machiavelli’s maxims. The Euro crisis unfolds in stages; each more agonising than the last.
A couple of weeks ago rapid and drastic action may have created a firewall between Greece and the rest of the Eurozone. Shock and awe of 2008 proportions did not come. The markets remain ahead of the politicians.
Henry Kissinger still wouldn’t know who to call if he wanted to call Europe. If he did get through he’d say: “Why don’t you fix your biggest economic crisis since the 1930s”? (more…)