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"A public relations exercise, designed to dupe people

We should not try to avoid 1929. We have already failed.
The best we can do now is to avoid 1930, 1931 and 1932
What about the €200bn European Union stimulus package that was agreed in a watered-down form by EU leaders on Friday?
Unfortunately, it is a public relations exercise first and foremost, designed to dupe people into believing that the EU is finally doing something.
Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times, December 14 2008

Last week, at a debate in Brussels organised by the Financial Times and Friends of Europe, a think-tank, André Sapir, professor of economics at Université Libre de Bruxelles, made an astute observation. He said we should not try to avoid 1929. We have already failed. The best we can do now is to avoid 1930, 1931 and 1932.
It will depend on the quality of our policy response whether we succeed

Over the past three years, I have closely followed the German finance minister with a growing sense of disbelief. Peer Steinbrück’s lack of diplomacy is remarkable only insofar as that it has now become known to a wider audience. He has been talking like this forever. His bashing of the “Anglo-Saxons” goes down very well in Germany for now. But at the time of the general elections in September 2009, Germany and the rest of the eurozone will be in the middle of an economic depression. Then people will be asking why their chancellor and their finance minister have been so extraordinarily complacent.

Our financial crisis is on the brink of turning into a policy crisis. People will blame not only bankers, but increasingly politicians as well. I would expect that Mr Steinbrück will be one of those politicians.

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