Unemployment in the Eurozone now averages 10.2 per cent but has reached 22.6 per cent and 17.6 per cent in Spain and Greece, respectively. Very significantly, the EU leaders are now negotiating new rules that would make fiscal discipline legally binding and move the currency block closer to a fiscal union. Across the Atlantic, in the US, the situation is only slightly better.
The level of the fiscal deficit and the political difficulty in reaching agreement on an appropriate deficit-reduction plan, resulted in a US downgrade (the first in its history). Earlier this week, Fitch Ratings revised the US ratings outlook, from stable to negative. The OECD projects that the US economy will grow at a 2 per cent rate next year.