My BBC Interview

As part of BBC Radio's coverage of the big Eurozone summit yesterday, I was interviewed by the BBC's Stephen Evans.  We talked about Germany's role in the crisis and what it and the ECB could do if they really wanted to save the Eurozone.  And yes, I was able to mention nominal GDP level targeting a few times on air (though I wish I had explained it better).  

My part starts around 8 minutues into the show, but there are other interesting segments on his show.  First, Stephen interviews some average Germans who all applaud Chancellor Angela Merkel's actions and seem blithely unaware that an economic disaster could be right around the corner for them too. He then interviews a consultant to Merkel whose advice is ignored and finally, plays the ECB's own online monetary policy game and learns that is rigged with a low-inflation-at-any-cost bias. 

Here is the link to the podcast of the show. [Update: The link is now directly connected to a permanent MP3 file.]

Update: One thing I mentioned in the interview is there is a lack of urgency for most Germans regarding the crisis  because they are in better economic shape, a point I have made before.  Now Floyd Norris makes a similar point n the  New York Times: 

For Germany and, to a lesser extent, the countries that some have speculated could join it in a new common currency if the euro zone collapses, recent years have been a time of relative prosperity. At the end of 2006, the unemployment rate in Germany was 9.6 percent and nearly four million people were out of work. Now the rate is down to 5.5 percent and just 2.3 million people are classified as out of work. 

[...] 

In recent months, the euro crisis has led some depositors to move their euros to German banks out of fear that other countries might leave the zone and convert to a less valuable currency. That has helped to lower borrowing costs for German companies while raising them for foreign competitors, if they can borrow at all.