The Washington Post reports
After more than a year of aggressive budget cutting by European governments, an economic slowdown on the continent is confronting policymakers from Madrid to Frankfurt with an uncomfortable question: Have they been addressing the wrong problem?American politicians sneer at everything "European," yet they swoon for this current European affectation like tween-age girls swooning for Justin Bieber.
The campaign to reduce government deficits has come in response to a European debt crisis that could endanger the global banking system. And the budget cutting has been coupled with a reluctance by the the European Central Bank to stimulate economic growth like the Federal Reserve has in the United States; the ECB has instead raised interest rates twice this year to contain inflation.
Those steps have sucked hundreds of billions of dollars out of a European economy that may be edging towards recession.
