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OECD Gives Austria Good Marks But Warns Of Deterioration
By: The Prudent Investor   Thursday, July 02, 2009 9:57 AM

People I asked say Austria would also survive a debt ratio of up to 90% without major problems.
As the Eurozone convergence criteria are anyway not sustainable in many other Euro members the EU should rather look into adapting these criteria drawn up in the sunny 1990s when modest but steady GDP growth appeared quite realistic and add a social chapter to the proposed text of the Lisbon Treaty I absolutely oppose. I may add that German Bundesbank officials were then fuming about these sunny sunday projections of Maastricht criteria off the record.
While measures in Austria and abroad have been introduced to stabilise financial markets, further financial-sector support might be needed to deal quickly with downside risks should they materialise.
Income maintenance should continue to be administered with a view to protect workers rather than jobs and in conjunction with schemes improving their longer-term employability. Nevertheless helping maintain existing jobs for a limited duration can be helpful in the current state of the crisis.
The OECD is certainly correct to ask for gains in productivity, remembering yesterday's stroll through the city where so many familiar captains of all power levels crowd the shadowed terraces of restaurants, watching that the local white wine does not get too warm while officially holding 2-hour meetings (meet and greet they do indeed.)
Beyond the ongoing crisis, the economy will need to be put on a stronger growth path, and to regain the ground lost over the past decade vis-à-vis better-performing economies.


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