“Ghostbusters”

Bloomberg’s Matthew Lynn thinks Greece should call the International Monetary Fund’s “Ghostbusters” to exorcise its demons and get its economy back on track. He writes: “’Who you gonna call?’ wasn’t just a catchphrase in the 1984 film “Ghostbusters.” If the worst happens in Greece, Spain or Portugal, we’re going to hear it all over again, and Europe’s taxpayers will want to know the answer. The European Union? The European Central Bank? Or the International Monetary Fund? Senior officials, including ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, have suggested it would be a humiliation for a euro- area country to call on the IMF for a rescue package to prevent a sovereign-debt default. European problems must have European solutions, they insist. That’s where they are wrong. This is no moment for pride. If emergency funding has to be organized, it should be the IMF that takes the lead. It has the expertise, it can absorb all the flak, and the ‘no bailout’ rule would remain one of the fundamental principles of the region’s common currency.”