Robert Samuelson discusses the economic quagmire of the developed world.
It may be that gobs of stimulus can’t rescue the global economy but that gobs of austerity might sink it. Our predicament is that it’s not just a few countries that face austerity but most advanced nations. We’ve arrived at a historical reckoning of the post-World War II welfare state, burdened with aging populations and huge debts. Germany’s gross public debt is 87 percent of its economy (gross domestic product); Japan’s, 213 percent; Britain’s, 89 percent; and the United States’, 101 percent, reports the BIS. (Its debt definition results in higher numbers than the standard U.S. measure.) Greece is not alone.
