The euro crisis: struggling to recover from bad debt and bad decisions

Austerity plans. Bailouts. Political deadlock. As European leaders try, fail and continue their struggle to solve the region’s debt crisis, investor confidence slumps and economic growth stalls. How did it happen? And what will happen next? The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute is examining the financial meltdown through a seminar series featuring academics and observers from Stanford and other institutions.

“I can’t begin to lay out the nightmares that are likely to occur if the euro breaks down,” says Josef Joffe, a senior fellow at FSI and the publisher-editor of Die Zeit, a German weekly newspaper.

In a discussion with Amir Eshel, director of the Europe Center, Joffe talks about how bad policies led to the crisis, what it will take to save the euro zone, and how well Europeans and Americans are poised to rebound from the “decline of the West.”

Joffe expanded on his ideas and observations during a talk (audio) earlier this month given as part of The Europe Center’s seminar series.