The only person I know that even tries to claim this is Morgan Warstler, though his evidence is idiosyncratic to say the least. He sent me this link on Twitter yesterday:
"A Greek company with backing from Chinese and Arab investors would then build a huge park, a shopping center, a marina, 1,000 hotel rooms and a skyscraper apartment building on what's billed as Europe's largest undeveloped waterfront tract. Multimillion-euro yachts dock at a marina within the parcel that was built for the 2004 Olympics, but a crumbling, two-block-long building with a leaky roof bakes in the sun. It was built for athletes but never used after the games."
"The project has been held up by a delay in approval from Parliament, which angers Jiorgos Kourtelis, a boat captain who sees money lost every time he drives by the unused buildings where he'd like to open a coffee shop for marina workers and boat crews."
"Right now it's a waste," said Kourtelis, 45. "They've been trying to solve this and they haven't done very much."
"Giakoumis believes Greece's need for European financing is now so dire that it will be forced to step up privatizations and deals to allow the private sector use government land and assets."
"If you asked me the same question five months ago I said it would be difficult," he said. "Now I think there is no way for the current government to continue opposing these privatizations. They need to accelerate the final process of approval."
http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2015/07/18/greece-does-about-face-pledges-big-privatization-push?page=2
I guess the point is that small businessmen can't do anything because of very strict and invasive government regulation. I note that this is anecdotal and conservative economists tend to dismiss anecdotes when liberals allegedly use them.
To me it's simple-it's up the Greeks to get rid of any bad laws and reuglations they have. Lars Christensen agrees with the need for reforms but denies that this is the root of the problem in Greece.
http://marketmonetarist.com/2015/07/19/the-euro-a-fiscal-strangulation-mechanism-but-mostly-for-monetary-reasons/
So Morgan's argument is that the EU is good because it's a mechanism to make countries do reforms that are said to be needed.
I still can't see how you can deny that most euro countries would have been better off if they never got on:
"I cannot find a single piece of evidence that would support the claims that the Eurozone had been a success. Even the price stability claims that the central bank continually makes are dubious given they are fighting the very real prospect of deflation and collapsing nominal asset prices (to follow on from the massive real estate losses that have already been endured)."
"Since the Euro was introduced, industrial production in Greece has slumped by 32.9 per cent, Spain 19.1 per cent, France 10.9 per cent, Italy 19.2 per cent, Cyprus 22 per cent, Malta 4 per cent, Portugal 15.6 per cent, and several nations such as Finland, the Netherlands have not expanded their industrial production at all."
"The industrial base of some of Europe’s biggest economies has shrunk significantly and alarmingly in the peripheral Eurozone nations."
"In the case of the Netherlands industrial production levels have fallen to those at the worst part of the GFC. The situation in Finland is worse than that."
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=31373
That's an awful lot of pain just to make the Greeks do structural reforms.
"A Greek company with backing from Chinese and Arab investors would then build a huge park, a shopping center, a marina, 1,000 hotel rooms and a skyscraper apartment building on what's billed as Europe's largest undeveloped waterfront tract. Multimillion-euro yachts dock at a marina within the parcel that was built for the 2004 Olympics, but a crumbling, two-block-long building with a leaky roof bakes in the sun. It was built for athletes but never used after the games."
"The project has been held up by a delay in approval from Parliament, which angers Jiorgos Kourtelis, a boat captain who sees money lost every time he drives by the unused buildings where he'd like to open a coffee shop for marina workers and boat crews."
"Right now it's a waste," said Kourtelis, 45. "They've been trying to solve this and they haven't done very much."
"Giakoumis believes Greece's need for European financing is now so dire that it will be forced to step up privatizations and deals to allow the private sector use government land and assets."
"If you asked me the same question five months ago I said it would be difficult," he said. "Now I think there is no way for the current government to continue opposing these privatizations. They need to accelerate the final process of approval."
http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2015/07/18/greece-does-about-face-pledges-big-privatization-push?page=2
I guess the point is that small businessmen can't do anything because of very strict and invasive government regulation. I note that this is anecdotal and conservative economists tend to dismiss anecdotes when liberals allegedly use them.
To me it's simple-it's up the Greeks to get rid of any bad laws and reuglations they have. Lars Christensen agrees with the need for reforms but denies that this is the root of the problem in Greece.
http://marketmonetarist.com/2015/07/19/the-euro-a-fiscal-strangulation-mechanism-but-mostly-for-monetary-reasons/
So Morgan's argument is that the EU is good because it's a mechanism to make countries do reforms that are said to be needed.
I still can't see how you can deny that most euro countries would have been better off if they never got on:
"I cannot find a single piece of evidence that would support the claims that the Eurozone had been a success. Even the price stability claims that the central bank continually makes are dubious given they are fighting the very real prospect of deflation and collapsing nominal asset prices (to follow on from the massive real estate losses that have already been endured)."
"Since the Euro was introduced, industrial production in Greece has slumped by 32.9 per cent, Spain 19.1 per cent, France 10.9 per cent, Italy 19.2 per cent, Cyprus 22 per cent, Malta 4 per cent, Portugal 15.6 per cent, and several nations such as Finland, the Netherlands have not expanded their industrial production at all."
"The industrial base of some of Europe’s biggest economies has shrunk significantly and alarmingly in the peripheral Eurozone nations."
"In the case of the Netherlands industrial production levels have fallen to those at the worst part of the GFC. The situation in Finland is worse than that."
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=31373
That's an awful lot of pain just to make the Greeks do structural reforms.
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