Lew again prods European leaders to promote economic growth

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-economy-lew-20130417,0,2428385.story

As the new U.S. Treasury secretary, Jacob J. Lew is taking up a familiar and so-far thankless task: trying to persuade top European officials to shift from austerity to more growth-oriented economic policies.

That was a major focus of Lew's first swing through Europe last week as Treasury head, and on Wednesday in Washington, he again pushed the message, albeit gingerly.

In a speech, Lew contrasted the divergent post-recession fortunes of the U.S. and Europe, noting that the American economy had grown for 14 straight quarters and added millions of jobs, while the Eurozone's output had fallen over the last five quarters and some of its member countries are battling extremely high unemployment.

Lew's point: The Euro area's fiscal belt-tightening policies aren't working -- and that's bad for everybody.