21 março 2010

Portugal visto de fora (e também de dentro)

Southern Europe was never meant to join the euro: The Portuguese did not do their homework to prepare for euro entry[...] Overnight, the country found itself enjoying German-style low interest rates, and not enough effort was made to explain to citizens that this was a unique moment in history, to be seized and not squandered. Instead, Portugal embarked on a short-termist spiral of private indebtedness, though it avoided the housing bubbles seen in places like Spain or Ireland.