In response to a question posed at a forum by The International Economy magazine in its Spring 2015 issue:
Debt relief per se will do nothing to solve Europe’s problems, and could exacerbate them. Under current political circumstances, debt relief would penalize pensioners and other fixed-income groups, reward the incumbent governments’ fiscal profligacy, and do nothing to stimulate growth while failing to make the total debt burden sustainable.
In response to a question posed at a forum by The International Economy magazine in its Spring 2015 issue:
Not a chance. Fed policy since 2008 has been to tilt against powerful deflationary forces that have yet to abate. How powerful are those forces? Consider this: from September 2008 to date, the monetary base has increased by 336%, from $0.94 trillion to $4.1 trillion, yet the annual CPI growth declined from 5% in September 2008 to a negative -0.1% in February 2015. So, we are talking about quite powerful underlying deflationary forces that will not go away.
