I have nothing but the highest regards for Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz and have been an avid reader of his articles and a staunch purchaser of his books. Although I don't always agree with him - he likes to chasten the so-called neoliberals with their exaggerated belief in unregulated and uncontroled markets, while being somewhat of a dogmatic leftist himself - I still enjoy having someone to coherently put forward an opposing view, to the one I hold myself. Having struggled through this book, I concede that I'm convinced in some arguments, but not at all in others.

First things first. I am not an economist myself, but a mathematician active in the field of finance, so I'm unencumbered by the heavy load of having to take economics serious as a science. "Prevailing economic theory suggests.. " is a sentence that makes me cringe. At the start of the book, Stiglitz already started by rubbing me up the wrong way by lumping the PIGS, (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) together, for the beauty of fitting the acronym, whilst not taking into consideration the different ways these countries got into trouble. Spain saw a real estate crisis blow up in its face (while its government finances were in order), Ireland was forced to pick up the pieces left by its two major banks (while its government finances were in order), but Greece shamelessly cooked the government books and should never have been allowed to join the euro on the basis of its government finances. I know this was a political decision, but this was all means avoidable. By then continuously blaming Germany for blocking all actions which would have transferred funds to a country which was living above its means, I think Stiglitz is missing a point. I agree with the suboptimal halfway house we have in terms of the banking union and Stiglitz makes abundantly clear that the creation of the euro has taken away one of the fundamental instruments of monetary policy from a country adopting, leaving only fiscal policy as a slower tool to rebalance a country's competitiveness. Yes, this is too slow to prevent recessions or depressions from happening, but you cannot continue blaming Germany for this. Greece now has a primary surplus, a growing GDP, still very high unemployment and a fragile banking system. It's probably too early to raise the flag of victory and I believe the European governments will need to write down the Greek debt. But at no point does Stiglitz even concede that successive Greek governments have simply cheated themselves into the euro system.

I also understand that in a closed system, the trade surpluses of all countries must add up to the trade deficits of the other countries and that imbalances in this relationship are untenable. Again, Siglitz points the finger at Germany for not allowing its trade surplus to rebalance by e.g. raising the minimum wage in order to make the country less competitive. But Germany is not only active in the closed system of Europe, to some degree the country is competing with the likes of China and US. I might have missed this, but Stiglitz seems to insist that the imbalances within Europe are the fault of Germany and that Greece is somehow being forced to take on more and more debt in order to fund the trade deficit it has with.. well, not really with Germany.

I'll leave it here for now, as I might reread the book on a later date. Still maintain my high regard for Stiglitz, but reading a whole book without being able to make counter arguments to the author's face is pretty hard for me. ( )

Een diepgravende en breed opgezette studie over de euro, de munt die Europa sterk moest maken doch al snel faalde door haar fundamentele tekortkomingen en zo de verschillen binnen Europa vergrootte in plaats van ze te verkleinen.
Het boek bevat naast tal van analyses ook scenario’s met fundamentele veranderingen waarbij de auteur niet blijft hangen in het grote manco van het ontbreken van een politieke unie in Europa.
Een interessant boek, dat met een stevig verankerde logica op vindingrijke wijze oplossingen aanbiedt. ( )

Stiglitz beschrijft de recente problemen in de eurozone goed, en stelt oplossingen voor (die mijn bloeddruk doen stijgen).

Ik vond het al bij al een redelijk interessant boek, maar ik had mij aan iets beter verwacht gezien Stiglitz een Nobelprijs economie heeft. Ik denk ook dat het boek bondiger kon. ( )

L’economista i premi Nobel ens explica per què salvar Europa pot significar abandonar l’euro. Una
lectura urgent i essencial. Se suposava que l’euro havia d’haver apropat els diferents estats europeus i que hauria comportat prosperitat. De fet, ha provocat justament el contrari. La crisi del 2008 va posar de manifest les deficiències de l’euro. L’estancament actual d’Europa i les fosques perspectives són resultat directe dels defectes inherents al projecte de la Unió Europea: la integració econòmica supera la integració política, amb una estructura que promou la divergència en comptes de la convergència. La qüestió, doncs, és: es pot salvar l’Euro?

The Nobel Prize-winning economist and bestselling author explains why saving Europe may
mean abandoning the Euro
Designed to bring Europe closer together, the euro has
actually done the opposite: after nearly a decade without
growth, unity has been replaced with dissent and
enlargements with prospective exits. Joseph Stiglitz argues
that Europe's stagnation and bleak outlook are a direct result
of the fundamental flaws inherent in the euro project -
economic integration outpacing political integration with a
structure that actively promotes divergence rather than
convergence. Money relentlessly leaves the weaker member
states and goes to the strong, with debt accumulating in a
few ill-favoured countries. The question now is: can the euro
be saved?
Laying bare the European Central Bank's misguided inflationonly mandate and explaining why austerity has condemned
Europe to unending stagnation, Stiglitz outlines three
possible ways forward: fundamental reforms in the structure
of the Eurozone and the policies imposed on the member
countries suffering the most; a well-managed end to the
euro; or a bold, new system he dubs the 'flexible euro;. This
important book, by one of the world's leading economists,
addresses the euro-crisis on a bigger intellectual scale than
any predecessor.