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Lessons Learned from Latin America and European Debt Crisis

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Submitted By DragonHousePG
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Does history really repeat itself? After reading the article on “Surviving A Debt Crisis: 5 Lessons for Europe from Latin America” by Samuel George from Bertelsmann Foundation, it seems very convincing that European leaders may have an opportunities to learn from the Latin American on how to handle and survive a debt crisis. The fundamental causes of these two debt crisis are highly similar. When the global economy was in good shape, massive lending was made to countries with unstable macroeconomic histories. Investors saw the lucrative opportunities to achieve high returns in some low-credibility nations but decided to take risks since there were no signs indicating any sort of recession. However, the second oil shock in 1979 led to spike in oil prices. As a result, the US went into recession, which drove commodities prices down significantly. Latin America countries import oil and export commodities, a deteriorated international trade situation slowed down their GDP growth. They were not able to pay for their loans which associated with floating interest rates.
In 21st century European, the global financial crisis trigged a series of events. The Greek government had to spend heavily through debt to subsidize shipping and tourism industries which were harmed by the business cycle. Real-estate bubble in Spain and Ireland forced their governments to bailout private banks via national debts. It is, therefore, clear that in "sunny days", countries should be cautious about their borrowings. On the one hand, they should rely on improving production efficiency rather than government overspending to stimulate economy growth. In addition, countries need to plan for the "rainy days". That is, formulating strategies (e.g. limiting debt-to-GDP ratio) to deal with possible economic downturns.
Lesson 1: Austerity Alone Cannot Solve a Debt

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