feedback on anonymous summary

SUMMARY OF Europe already has one foot in ‘Japanese’ deflation grave

In the article “Europe already has one foot in ‘Japanese’ deflation grave” published in

“The Telegraph” on 23 October 2013, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard analyses the European deflation and debt crisis. (“short and sweet” start)

According to him, the current dilemma is, just like in Japan, caused by politician’s policy errors. Besides harming economically weak countries (nice phrase) such as Greece and

Spain, this mismanagement (good vocab) also puts Germany at risk.

Further, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard states that deflation worsens the crisis, mentioning Italy and its problem of runaway debt. Through deflation, debts continue to grow, forcing governments to cut their spending which leads to a high unemployment rate.

However, instead of encouraging inflation, the ECB prefers to remain idle (good phrase and vocab “idle”).

The author also proposes two possible solutions. In his opinion, the best approach would be if the Club Med (Italy, Spain, and France) starts working together to introduce the policies needed to ease the situation. The fear of Germany leaving the monetary Union (Fiona and Melissa told me in “Textkompetenz” that we should try to avoid nominal phrases so maybe restructure the phrase using a verb – but I actually like “the fear of leaving”)  has prevented these states to implement this strategy yet. Another resolution to the problem would be to remain paralysed and wait for another period of global growth. In Evans-Pritchard’s view, the latter is rather irresponsible and dangerous. (the whole paragraph is explained in a comprehensible way also for people with little knowledge of the subject! Great!)

The title already indicates the author’s opinion about deflation being a severe problem for Europe. (good concluding sentence!!)

204 WORDS, NOT INCLUDING TITLE

My Feedback:

While reading this summary I could not stop saying things like “Wow!” or “That’s amazing!”. I am really impressed by this summary. We have to consider that this was the first summary written by the author – at least I think so (by the way I would love to know who has written this text!). In general, I like the structure a lot. The person started with a perfect introduction phrase where he/she mentioned all the necessary details (author’s name, title of the article, newspaper in which it was published and what the article was about). It gave a good overview. Then he/she went on giving some basic information about the problem which made it easy to understand what it is all about. Especially the third paragraph is very well written and he/she used good vocabulary which made me feel like the author really understood what the article is all about – not just on the surface but even the details. (I think the author of this text might be very interested in economics?) Lastly, I like the way this summery is brought to an end. With the last sentence he/she indicates the author’s opinion and once again sums up the article very briefly.