Tim Duy — EZ agreement is about unity on fiscal austerity, not fiscal union

When all is said and done, I am still amazed that the outcome of this summit is being described as a move toward fiscal union. It is not that - it is commitment to unified fiscal austerity, nothing more....

In short, I think Europe is rushing full speed to a Japanese outcome, with slow growth coupled with an appreciating currency. And it is that promise of slow growth and a strong currency will be what eventually tears the Eurozone apart. And this is truly sad given that deficits are not really the problem to begin with.

Why will the Eurozone fail? Because we still see nothing that addresses the internal imbalances between the core (largely Germany), and the periphery. That is the result of failing to commit to a real fiscal union. Such a union would include automatic internal fiscal transfers that are essential to maintaining regional economic stability. For example, economic distress in a US state results in an automatic relative transfer of resources via decreased tax revenue from and increased transfer payments to that state. Lacking such a mechanism, a slow growth, hard money regime will increasingly ratchet up the levels of economic distress in the periphery. And eventually the costs of staying in the Euro will exceed the costs of exit....

Bottom Line: I remain a Europessimist. The ECB is moving aggressively to preventing an imminent financial collapse. That should be seen as good news. But there remain unresolved deeper issues. At the core of those issues is the inability to see Europe as one large, fiscal unified economy rather than a combination of separate, fiscally austere economies. And in that remains the long-term vulnerability of the Euro experiment.

Read the whole post at Tim Duy's Fed Watch

A Mixed Bag From Europe

by Tim Duy