Posted on 07/06/2015 9:59:48 PM PDT by BenLurkin
[W]ith the “no” vote in Sunday’s Greek referendum on bailout terms posing the biggest challenge yet to decades of European integration, risks to the European project resulting from Germany’s rise as the Continent’s most powerful country are becoming clear.
On Friday, Spanish antiausterity leader Pablo Iglesias urged his countrymen: “We don’t want to be a German colony.” On Sunday, after Greece’s result became clear, Italian populist Beppe Grillo said, “Now Merkel and bankers will have food for thought.” On Monday, Ms. Merkel flew to Paris for crisis talks amid signs the French government was resisting Berlin’s hard line on Greece.
“What is happening now is a defeat for Germany, especially, far more than for any other country,” said Marcel Fratzscher, head of the German Institute for Economic Research, a leading Berlin think tank. “Germany has, at the end of the day, helped determine most of the European decisions of the last five years.”
Senior German officials, in private moments, marvel at the fact that their country, despite its weak military and inward-looking public, now has a greater impact on most European policy debates than Britain or France, and appears to wield more global influence that at any other time since World War II.
Berlin think-tank elites, diplomats and mainstream politicians generally see the rise of German power as a good thing. They describe the stability, patience and rules-based discipline of today’s German governance as what Europe needs in these turbulent times. Germany—with its export-dependent economy and history-stained national identity—has the most to lose from an unraveling of European integration and is focused on keeping the union strong, they say.
...
U.S. officials generally see German leadership as crucial geopolitically, praising Ms. Merkel’s push last year to get all 28 European Union countries to adopt sanctions against Russia over Ukraine.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Springtime for Merkel and Germany
Winter for Greece
It is an oddly-written article.
When someone in Greece says they don’t want to be a German colony....but then they spend themselves into oblivion...smiling as though they were a kid in some chocolate factory....then asking more cash (not a loan)....there’s something wrong. The Germans simply said: “nein, danke” and walked away.
If you have to borrow money to support your lifestyle, and show no method or intention of ever paying the money back...that’s a character flaw of a five-star nature. Sorry, but I don’t buy into this Greek argument.
The sooner the EU breaks up, the better for everybody.
The Reich will rise again.
They’re just like Liberals. They didn’t have a problem with Germany when they wanted to borrow the money. Now, they have a problem when German banks think the debtors should pay the debt. It’s really not a national or ethnic thing. It’s a normal banking issue. It’s not surprising that Krugman and other Liberal mouthpieces favored Greece voting not to pay its debts. Liberals want others to pay for their loafing, early retirements, socialism, and general folly without them having to pay the money back.
Auf weider sehn, write if you get work.
They are jealous.
You never loan him money again.
If you are a butcher and you sell a man a side of beef on credit and that man never pays the bill?
You never sell to that man again.
If you are a store owner and someone writes you a bad check what do you do?
You make it a policy that you only make cash sales to that person.
I don’t understand why this is such a complicated issue.
If Greece decides that they are not going to pay their debts they will not get any further aid, they must pay cash for everything the world sells them and until they pay their debts that is how it will be unless they accept the terms that the lenders choose to impose.
I suspect that is true. I worked in Belgium, Germany, Italy and Turkey prior to the Euro. No ATMs. I had to carry traveler's checks and wait in line at a local bank to buy enough local currency. Later trips with working ATMs made life easier..even in local currency. I've made one trip back to Italy since the Euro and it was evident the locals didn't deal well with the Euro. My company always gave me full reimbursement for gasoline, so I would put my remaining pocket change in local currency into the rental car gas tank and take a receipt back for reimbursement. A better deal than the money changers at the airport.
My UK travel was always in pound sterling. Exchange rates ran about $1.53 USD per pound. Most merchandise that I could purchase in the US was priced in the UK in a similar number of pounds i.e. it cost 50% more to buy the same product in the UK.
Once again we have France to thank for another debacle.
I’ve been around Europe for twenty-five years. I would agree....finding an ATM prior to the Euro was just about impossible. On the base, we had two machines....one for DM and one for dollars. If you wanted both....you had to play the ATM game twice.
Oddly, since the Euro arrival....no matter where you go in France, Germany or most countries....you will find ATMs throughout most cities. In my village of 3,000 residents, we have two ATMs. Before 2000....none existed.
For bankers and business people...the Euro is great. For travelers, the Euro is great. For anyone who knows how to handle money....I don’t see the problem. The Greeks are the oddball in this whole story. It wouldn’t matter if they were handling the Drachma or Euro....they’d screw up the situation in a matter of just a few years.
So, I’ll predict....as they eventually flip back to the Drachma....they barely get to three years before another crisis occurs.
The convenience is one thing, but this is not
just about consumer or even business convenience.
This is about different cultures joining a monetary
union. Monetary policy follows culture.
If Greece is profligate, they will suffer inflation
as an escape valve. They will devalue their own currency,
and their own economy will suffer.
Profligate Greece knew they got someone else to pay this
bill at monetary union. Germans projected their own
culture on Greece. Wishful thinking.
More broadly, the one-world types wanted this as a way
station onto world governance. The more it shows itself
to fail, the less we are likely to suffer from that
calamity.
When will the first GREEK pull his/her head out of the sand and say “The party’s over!”? Folks can’t live off of the wealth created by other people forever.
Which bank or country has not yet woken up and realized that the Greeks will NEVER repay their debts and will ALWAYS be asking to have more money advanced to them?
I do not fear the Forth Reich—thats what we have now with a unified Germany and a rebuilt Berlin. I fear a new Fifth Reich that is waiting to be born. When things grow hard in Germany and people turn right wing—a new government—a nationalist government will come to power to fix things. And when Germany is fixed—they will start to fix the rest of Europe. It will be a better Europe in some ways—worse in others. Greece will become a client state of Germany and the good times will come crashing to a halt. Islamic people will not do well—welfare will not exist—only work, and hard work at that.
Given what the EU means to the European Elite, they will find a way to keep Greece in the club, at ANY COST. All they need is a number from Greece - maybe $20B per year. If that’s the price, they’ll pay it, somehow...the trick will be not letting their public know it.
One option is to allow Greece to print the $20B in Euros (they have that capability)...and then just use the money.
The EU isn’t going anywhere - as I’ve said, the people running the EU would rather throw their first-born into an active volcano than to see the EU go away - it means that much to them.
They won’t even get three years; nobody is going to want to accept drachmas as payment. For anything they import they will have to use another currency (or gold).
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