If it had tried, it would have worsened the external deficit and needed a larger bailout when the reckoning came.

He inherited an unusually large external deficit on the balance of trade.

The external deficit was driven up primarily by high rates of growth of domestic demand and production through 1974.

They were running big external deficits in 2009-10, when international investors lost confidence.

Austerity undoubtedly created a bitter recession, but without it these economies would have built up still larger external deficits and required bigger bailouts when the reckoning came.