This means increasing unemployment so much that wages fall enough to make the country more internationally competitive. The social costs of such a move, however, are extremely high and it rarely if ever works. Unemployment has doubled in Greece (to 14.7 percent), more than doubled in Spain (to 20.7 percent) and more than tripled in Ireland (to 14.7 percent). But recovery is still elusive.
These unemployment numbers struck me because I've seen them before. These 14.x% unemployment rates are the same as the current (and long term) unemployment rates for African-Americans. In fact in some places and among certain geographic areas the unemployment rate for black males are upwards of 50%.
One has to wonder that if such rates of unemployment are grounds to suggest that an entire country reject an entire currency, to reject institutions such as the IMF, then why is it not seen as a national emergency in the US that 13+ percent of it's population is seeing such "unacceptable" levels of unemployment? Let's understand that high levels of unemployment correlate with levels of crime. Persons who enter the prison system provide employment for small towns across America. Persons who enter prison also provide cheap labour for some companies (just as it did at the end of Reconstruction).
