{"id":533,"date":"2026-04-30T07:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T04:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/?p=533"},"modified":"2026-05-17T06:13:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T03:13:43","slug":"we-are-heading-towards-a-new-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/we-are-heading-towards-a-new-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are Heading Towards a New Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Greek society&#8217;s obsession with &#8220;measures&#8221; and the passion for announcing financial benefits inevitably leads to new fiscal dead ends. When that happens, dozens of loud citizens and journalists will once again wonder \u201cwhere did the money go!\u201d The answer must be \u2013 even if public opinion again refuses to accept it \u2013 \u201cto benefits\u201d! Essentially, this is a theoretical clash between two schools of economic thought: the views of John Maynard Keynes and the claims of Friedrich von Hayek.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Their conflict is not merely theoretical; it is a disagreement about how the world works in times of crisis. The fundamental difference is that, according to Hayek, markets self-correct, while the state usually makes things worse. According to Keynes, markets can \u201cget stuck,\u201d and the state must then intervene. The Great Depression (1930s) was the first major crash test. Hayek (and the Austrian School \u2013 von Mises, Kirzner, etc.) argued that the crisis was the result of a previous \u201cbubble\u201d and that the economy should be allowed to \u201ccleanse\u201d itself. Keynes, on the other hand, insisted that demand collapsed, causing unemployment and creating a vicious cycle. Therefore, the state must inject money into the economy. In practice, policies like Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal, which leaned more towards Keynes\u2019 approach, were implemented. The result was the validation of Keynesian views.<\/p>\n<p>Then came stagflation (1970s). That was the big upheaval. Keynesian policies could not explain the simultaneous presence of high inflation and unemployment. (There was no way to pass the exam of Keynes\u2019 former student Joan Robinson at Cambridge with such views.) Thus, Hayek\u2019s ideas, and generally liberal\u2013monetarist views, came to the forefront. With Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, these views dominated worldwide. In this way, Hayek was \u201cvindicated\u201d in believing that excessive intervention and monetary loosening cause distortions. Then came the crisis of 2008, the most recent crash test. The crisis originated in the markets (but also from loans by state-controlled banks, e.g., Fannie Mae). Governments (Obama) made massive interventions with bank bailouts, fiscal stimulus packages, and central banks printing money. This was clearly a Keynesian instinct. Hayek\u2019s supporters (e.g., Meltzer) countered that the crisis was caused by wrong interest rates and distortions and that bailouts reinforce moral hazard (Roubini).<\/p>\n<p>In today\u2019s situation, it is not only Hayek who warns us, through his writings at the time, that we are heading towards dead ends, but also Keynes himself, who insisted that \u201cin crisis you spend, in growth you save.\u201d By spending to secure popular favor, one undermines every rational economic effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greek society\u2019s obsession with economic measures and welfare promises fuels recurring fiscal crises, highlighting the timeless debate between Keynesian interventionism and Hayekian market self-correction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[453,433,432,431,404,434],"nfg_topic":[134,135],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-economy","tag-franklin-d-roosevelt","tag-friedrich-hayek","tag-john-maynard-keynes","tag-margaret-thatcher","tag-ronald-reagan","nfg_topic-europe","nfg_topic-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":535,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions\/535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}