An election year financial crisis?

Spiegel asks economic historian Barry Eichengreen why the markets seem to worry so much about European debt levels and so little about America’s debt. His answer is unsettling: I’m not a very good psychoanalyst, especially when it comes to Wall Street bond traders. But I worry that they will begin to distrust the US soon ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Spiegel asks economic historian Barry Eichengreen why the markets seem to worry so much about European debt levels and so little about America's debt. His answer is unsettling:

Spiegel asks economic historian Barry Eichengreen why the markets seem to worry so much about European debt levels and so little about America’s debt. His answer is unsettling:

I’m not a very good psychoanalyst, especially when it comes to Wall Street bond traders. But I worry that they will begin to distrust the US soon too. History has shown us that financial crises always happen close to elections. We have an important election coming up in 2012. If we haven’t tackled our debt problem by then — and it looks unlikely that we will — then we will face serious problems.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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