Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Portugal’s Unnecessary Bailout

NYTimes:



If left unregulated, market forces could eclipse the capacity of democratic governments to make their own fiscal decisions.


Why, then, has Portugal’s debt been downgraded and its economy pushed to the brink? There are two possible explanations. One is ideological skepticism of Portugal’s mixed-economy model, with its publicly supported loans to small businesses, alongside a few big state-owned companies and a robust welfare state. Market fundamentalists detest the Keynesian-style interventions in areas from Portugal’s housing policy — which averted a bubble and preserved the availability of low-cost urban rentals — to its income assistance for the poor.




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