Estupidez

Yet in their latest Article IV consultation report the IMF Executive Directors actually “welcomed the [Portuguese] authorities’ impressive policy effort to gradually reverse the accumulated imbalances and prevent future crises”. How they can say this and keep a straight face when talking about a country which is actually travelling backwards in time is hard to understand. It looks increasingly like the Fund is suffering from “integrity flight” and relegating itself to the role of a public relations body for a group of fumbling European politicians.

The depth of ignorance which exists on the challenges the country faces was revealed last year when Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho actually said that the best solution to youth unemployment problem was for young people to emigrate. We are increasingly handling the new and complex problems presented by the 21st century with the aid of simplistic formulas derived from 20thcentury textbook economics. It’s time for someone somewhere to wake up to the fact that the old models don’t work, because there are growing number of key factors they simply don’t capture.