In 1992, when the Treaty of Maastricht created the euro, it was stipulated that member states should ensure that their budget deficits would be less than 3 percent of GDP and that total public debt would remain below 60 percent of GDP.
The “stagfl ation” of the 1970s had convinced governments and people that central banks ought to be independent of political control and target low inflation as their only objective.
This condition, which economists label 'secular stagnation', is associated with limp and vulnerable economic expansions, which often conclude in the deflation of big asset-price bubbles
when an economy like China grows from extreme poverty to something like middle-income status is 'capital deepening', or the application of more capital per worker
The less succour they receive from existing political institutions, the more open individual workers are likely to be to radical political institutions that offer the possibility of political expression and economic power
which is a good thing imo
