Technology Slice Blog

Eurozone Banks - Jim O'Neill, probably the most influential thinker at Goldman Sachs (as current head of its asset management division and erstwhile chief economist), has this morning written that "European Monetary Union (EMU) will probably survive, but it is likely to remain very messy". Which is hardly a ringing endorsement by the world's most powerful investment bank of the most ambitious economic and financial project in Europe of our age. And, let us not forget, Goldman Sachs is not famous for issuing public statements that rile the world's most powerful governments - which tend to be its customers. For O'Neill, the issue is about the governance of the eurozone, not about the magnitude of the debts of Europe's financially stretched economies. He points out that the sovereign indebtedness of Greece, Ireland and Portugal is huge relative to the size of their respective economies but almost de minimis in relation to the size of the eurozone as a ...