Executive Insight – Master Capital Group

Europe needs to move from demure to decisive. It is hard for any bystander to rationalize the tepid and timid moves proposed by either the European leaders or the European Central Bank (ECB) regarding their sovereign debt crisis. While the Americans’ prefered solution to the financial crisis is quantitative easing — flushing the markets with fresh liquidity and injecting capital into the financial institutions — the Europeans want to follow a fundamentally different path: Treating the root cause of the problem rather than its immediate after-effects. The European approach is similar to treating a patient dying from acute asthma with a long-term steroid treatment rather than prescribing a couple of puffs from an inhaler that will keep him alive long enough to see the long-term. Their approach — even if executed and implemented in its utmost detail — will lead to a collapse of financial markets, not only infecting Europe