The Crisis Abroad

I’m really enjoying the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek today. It seems like most people are too fixated on the economic crisis at home to give more than a few glances at the headlines pointing to the economic crises happening abroad. But since we’re all part of the global economy, and since what’s happening abroad is pretty much a funhouse mirror of what’s happening in the U.S., it’s important to get a good basic understanding of it. Adam Davidson summed it up pretty nicely last November:

Europe’s problems are a lot like ours, only worse. Like Wall Street, Germany is where the money is. Italy, like California, has let bad governance squander great natural resources. Greece is like a much older version of Mississippi — forever poor and living a bit too much off its richer neighbors. Slovenia, Slovakia and Estonia are like the heartland states that learned the hard way how entwined so-called Main Street is with Wall Street. Now remember that these countries share neither a government nor a language. Nor a realistic bailout plan, either.

Davidson’s primer is excellent, and for updates, I’d highly recommend the stories in this week’s Bloomberg Businessweek.

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