"Can Europe Be Saved?" A Reflection

Article by Paul Krugman (1/12/2011)

This article was was supposed to be a straight forward approach to help make the American people understand the struggles that the Euro is facing in most european countries. It addresses a few historical examples of depressions and reasons behind them. It also makes some side by side comparisons between states within the US and different european countries.

It mentions how certain countries have stayed afloat, like Argentina, by pegging their dollar worth to that of the US. While other countries did more spending and borrowing, like Greece, and other's merely watched other markets. It mentions a lot of countries and a lot of different ways they kept their economy afloat before and after the Euro and how each was a bad or good way of doing things.

One side by side comparison was between Nevada and Ireland. There appear to be similarities and he believes he's making good points. Then, when he harps in on the differences it makes the previous statements completely irrelevant. It makes the entire section a little confusing by making you think one way and then immediately flip-flopping.

It talks a lot about how the housing bubble burst and the economies in several countries fell when issues with the Euro arose. Some points seemed very compelling, while other I felt myself losing the point of view. I found it pretty obvious that this paper is written from a more right wing perspective, with a more critical eye on that of europe and a more lenient one on the US. While that may not constitute "right wing behavior" the over all tone of the article felt conservative.

The hardest part about the 8 page long dig on european countries was the constant back and forth. Jumping back and forth not only from year to year, but country to country within that same thought. Making random references to economists, delegates, and diplomats added to the whiplash I experienced reading.

In my opinion, this article was actually incredibly hard to follow and even more difficult to truly understand. I think the author got so caught up with making points and allegories and references that he lost the main focus of the piece. Perhaps I just have a more untrained eye and a feeble mind, but this was just a rough read and I ended wondering how I could have read 8 pages and understood less than half of what it said.