Capturing the ECB - Joseph E. Stiglitz. Exit from comment view mode.
Click to hide this space NEW YORK – Nothing illustrates better the political crosscurrents, special interests, and shortsighted economics now at play in Europe than the debate over the restructuring of Greece’s sovereign debt. Germany insists on a deep restructuring – at least a 50% “haircut” for bondholders – whereas the European Central Bank insists that any debt restructuring must be voluntary. An education in occupation. As the last American soldiers left Iraq in December, so, too, did many of the journalists who had covered the war, leaving little in the way of media coverage of post-war Iraq.
While there were some notable exceptions -- including two fine articles by MIT's John Tirman that asked how many Iraqis had been killed as a result of the US invasion -- overall the American press published few articles on the effects of the occupation, especially the consequences for Iraqis. As a college professor, I have a special interest in what happened to Iraqi universities under US occupation. The story is not pretty. Until the 1990s, Iraq had perhaps the best university system in the Middle East. Mason Lse Lecture Jan 2012.