[hinckley buzzard]

My gut says something is looming on the horizon but what would it actually mean for the Euro to "collapse?" Money would no longer buy anything? Prices would go astronomical?" Governments would no longer pay employees, pensions, etc?

I really don't know but wonder what the day to day effect on the average citizen would be, and most of all, why. Any insights anyone?

[Jack Hydrazine]

I had a rabbi tell me not long after the intro of the Euro that it would not last. How he knew I don’t know but he must have seen some fundamentals that weren’t put into place before it was rolled out.

[EternalVigilance]

"When, Not If"

This is always true of the inevitable collapse of socialism.

[jersey117]

Look where Europe is now. Yet we have a “president” advocating those same socialistic policies. What a moron.

[Billthedrill]

The challenge this time isn't how to prevent the collapse, it's how best to address it so that as few people as possible get hurt. That was the choice facing Bush, and he sold a piece of whatever conservative soul he had left to pump $400 billion into a "soft landing" which, unfortunately, was soft enough to protect the principal offenders from having to change their behavior, and, worse, provided cover for his successor to quadruple the bet for his own purposes. But agree or not, that's why he did what he did.

Now Europe, and the stakes are far higher. Can economic cooperation, the "collectivizing" of risk, and the judicious printing of paper money ease the fall? We saw what happened when Bush tried it and the answer is that there probably isn't enough surplus left in the system to do that even as poorly as his administration did. We can, however, make things worse. Perhaps allowing a hard failure is worse, but whether it is or not, we're running out of options.

[RegulatorCountry]

Has the Euro even fallen to the exchange rate at which it was introduced in 1999, which was par with the US dollar?

If not, this is hyperbole. If it has, take it seriously.

Too many blogsters need to generate hits and the surest way to do so is to hit the panic button, again and again and again. Is the situation bad? Yes it is. Is it as bad as this? Exchange rate with the dollar, please, then the picture will be a little clearer through all the fog of blog.

[Always A Marine]

Out of such chaos are popular dictators swept to power, and I don't see why this situation will prove any different.

Europe now faces twin perils: financial collapse in the short term and demographic collapse in the longer term. Once again Europe has become fertile ground for a tough-talking despot to restore immediate order and then begin the deportation and slaughter of a scapegoat population. In this case, Europe's new enemy truly is a threat -- its hostile, non-assimilated Muslim immigrants.

[O6ret]

Good news for the dollar; time to be shorting the Euro and staying long in gold & silver.

[Jumper]

All countries using the Euro still maintain a valuation against their previous currency valuation, even though none of the money is in circulation. I beleive that EUropean countries can very easily switch to Francs, Gilders, Marks, Lira, etc., and that when doing this they already have a market value assigned on a daily basis at which point to make the conversion.

[familyop]

More propaganda from a suck-up for globalism. In the USA, we have plenty of natural resources for rising from the contemporary wrongness and idiocy, when we’re willing to do some real work (manufacturing). Ignore Europe. Starve the beast. Bring it on.