Support the campaign to audit Europe's public debt ...
Support the campaign to audit Europe's public debt Working people shoulder the burden of public debt, but lack information on its composition, its terms, and its sources Public debt is at the heart of the eurozone crisis. Greek public debt, already very high for years, has grown extraordinarily since 2009. Irish public debt has escalated once the debts of private banks were added to it. Portugal and Spain threaten to go the same way. Similar trends can be seen in other European countries, the UK not excluded. Common patterns usually have common causes. The global crisis of 2007-9 resulted in huge costs, partly due to rescuing the financial system, partly due to falling output and rising unemployment. In the eurozone things were made worse because the common currency had weakened peripheral countries, giving rise to large current account deficits. Peripheral weakness was masked for a while by credit-fuelled booms in real estate and consumption, but this o...