Your timeline nicely encapsulates how little has changed in the dominant political and economic ideology despite four more years of recession or anaemic growth.  If anything, Governments have doubled down on the austerity approach, and electoral growth has been by parties of the far right who want even more austerity.  As Einstein is reputed to have said: "Madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result".  Or as Talleyrand is said to have put it: "They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing".

What is marvellous to me is the sense of entitlement: German savers are said to be entitled to a return on their savings.  And on whose backs is this return to be generated?  The relatively impoverished workers  and unemployed of Greece? Spain? Portugal? By what god given law is anyone supposed to be entitled to interest on their savings, when all they have done is put it into a bank or a relatively risk free investment.

The truth is, they are getting no return on their investment because their governments and banks are refusing to invest it productively on their behalf. It's always somebody else who is supposed to do the work and take the risks...  Maybe one day the "Swabian housewife" will realise that her alleged thrift is not only impoverishing her neighbours, it is ultimately throttling the growth potential of her own family as well.

Index of Frank's Diaries