They lack the boldness and the drive required to put the global economy back on a safe course. The West looks to be heading for the double dip recession whose spectre has been haunting us ever since the crisis struck. There was a time when sovereign debt was deemed to be risk-free.
An exception was made for developing countries, whose debt had always been a bit dicey, with many of them becoming serial defaulters. The West could lecture the South on getting their economic policies straightened out before they could grudgingly extend some much-needed debt-relief. “It’s the economy, stupid!” as US President Bill Clinton famously put it. That was then.