The European Commission’s top economists warned the politicians in the 1990s that the euro might not survive a crisis, at least in its current form. There is no EU treasury or debt union to back it up. The one-size-fits-all regime of interest rates caters badly to the different needs of Club Med and the German bloc.There are too many countries affected by this to claim they “did it to themselves” at this point.
The euro fathers did not dispute this. But they saw EMU as an instrument to force the pace of political union. They welcomed the idea of a “beneficial crisis”. As ex-Commission chief Romano Prodi remarked, it would allow Brussels to break taboos and accelerate the move to a full-fledged EU economic government. …
Oh I hate the EU, make no mistake about it. I believe its primary objective has always been to further the goal of socialism. European leftists have always known the great danger to their social welfare states would be other European countries that adopted much freer markets and less regulation. The socialists have always known they couldn’t compete. There is no doubt the EU acts as a big bully too.
Still, I’m sorry, but Europeans are not forced to vote irresponsibly. In fact, even the EU busy bodies of all people, have been chiding some of these countries again and again to spend less and get their debt under control. But the people won’t do it. Good grief man, look at Greece right now. The people there STILL don’t really want to cut anything. Slashing some public service jobs is like pulling teeth with the deepest roots ever. The Greeks want to blame everyone but themselves - and the same thing is playing out in the rest of the debt crushed European countries. No one has to take a bailout. They can default and leave the Eurozone, but they won’t do it because it would require too much cutting that they don’t want to do.
We are doing the same thing here in the US. We are not that far behind Europe - maybe a generation or less. People are voting for big, bloated government because they believe politicians that tell them we can live far beyond our means. People have bought the drug of socialism and, just like Europe, it won’t end well - and it will be our own fault.