Greek lessons for Scotland

If Scottish nationalists really want independence, they'd better ditch the pound, says John Stepek.

Who controlsGreek economic policy? It's hard to give a full answer to that question in this short space. Any half-decent attempt would have to mention Mario Draghi (president of the European Central Bank), the International Monetary Fund, and maybe throw in a nod to German chancellor Angela Merkel.

But I can tell you one thing for sure it's not the Greeks. If the Greeks want to keep the euro as their currency and despite everything, they keep voting as if they do then they have to do what the rest of Europe tells them.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.