finally got tired of paying all the bills i guess
Posted on 07/24/2015 8:50:40 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Through all the haggling and hair-pulling in the past months over more austerity, fewer creditors getting their money, and a dreaded “Grexit”—a scenario in which Greece would leave Europe’s currency union—at least four prominent economists in three major American publications have casually and quietly suggested there may be a third way: A German exit.
That is, Germany should exit the euro, and clear the way for countries in the south of Europe—notably, Greece, Italy, Spain, and probably Portugal—to reconcile their debt with a greatly depreciated currency and maybe finally get a handle on their economies.
The latest thinker to suggest this, Ashoka Mody of Princeton University in the US, wrote an opinion piece for Bloomberg on July 17, that succinctly lays out why a “Gerxit,” rather than a Grexit, would be a preferable option. […]
The countries not only have disparate outcomes, but hugely disparate economic backgrounds, say analysts. That is why, Mody argues, creating a monetary union among these states was never an economically sensible decision. “An ill-considered union was formed, and therefore pain will have to be incurred,” Mody said. …
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
Everyone should exit the Euro.
finally got tired of paying all the bills i guess
The euro should be ended. You can’t saddle such disparate economies like Germany and Greece with the same currency and expect it to work out. Irrational.
Paying what bills? They’ve never handed out any money, and they insisted on giving loans to countries that didn’t want them in the first place. And that’s aside from the game of beggar-thy-neighbor they were playing.
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.Think that they got what they wanted? or are they going to precipitate something worse to reach their undue goal?
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. …
i'm no economist, but it seems to me that giving loans to countries that don't the means to repay them is the same as giving them the money to pay their bills, and it looks like Greece is begging for the loans not turning them down but like i said, i'm no economist
The krauts ARE the Euro.
It’s more than that; it includes ordering them to raise their taxes and adhere more closely to EU regulations, which will utterly stifle business and guarantee that they cannot pay the loans back. Now would anyone who wants Greece to recover require such things? There’s a far different agenda at play.
When the loans were first offered, the government in Greece refused them. So then the government was made to fall, and it got replaced with a government that would take them. That pattern was repeated in Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Right now, the ultimate “solution” being put forward for all these deliberately-engineered economic problems is more “Europe” rather than less.
It seems to me that the European Union is a lot like our government under the Articles of Confederation, and is breaking down for many of the same reasons.
but i thought greece lied it's way into the euro with help of the goldman sachs understating it's problems? like i said, i'm no economist but the whole euro thing sounded like a baaaad idea from the start to me...
If they want to stop bailing out the dead weight.
The entire euro is a lie to begin with; there was no need for Greece to add to any other lies. It was deliberately set up as a fiat currency in order to precipitate a crisis.
You’ll find it’s mostly people from the European Central Bank that claimed Greece “cheated” by “distorting” its national debt; they are, of course, seeking to cover their posteriors.
Who got bailed out? I heard that loans were given out. And the countries that got those loans had to agree to raise taxes and adhere to stricter EU regulations as conditions.
Un-equally yoked.
The euro and eu etc etc may just be a continuation of the contest for control of Europe — that’s been underway for generations. Ukraine is a big ping pong ball in this contest, Greece a smaller one. There remain but two major players still standing, Germany and Russia. And interestingly, the contest continues over much the same booty — control over everything but especially stuff inbetween the two main players. And, many of the factors remain the same too — Germany stronger in several ways with Russia with (defensive) advantages of weather and land mass. Ukraine remains a big prize due to agriculture, resources, strategic location, and pipeline routes. Ukraine also has trouble due to additional outside players messing with, inside the territory Just remembering also that the borders in that part of the world have been about as reliable as those in the Middle East, which is to say Not Very. A lot more flux seems likely.
I’m woefully uninformed on the EU and international finance in general, so I’ll ask the N00B question: Why would Greece leaving the EU cause so much havoc for Europe?
I get that the EU has already poured a lot of money into Greece, and that it would be tantamount to tearing up the IOU’s. But, Greece’s economy is only a tiny portion of Europe’s as a whole. And in any case, if they continued to bail them out, the debts would only get worse.
To ask another dumb question, if Greece was out of the EU, couldn’t any further damage be isolated from the EU? Greece would go (further) to hell without EU support, but is there no way to contain the economic havoc to within their borders?
I was around for a number of years in Germany....BEFORE the Euro arrived. Everyone whined (Germans were minor, but Americans in Germany were louder about this).
If you had any plans for the weekend where it meant you had to cross some border (France, Austria, Lux, Belgium, Netherlands)...then it meant visiting a local bank and ordering your currency. If you lived next to France....they generally had a bit on hand but you were typically limited to $400 worth of Francs or you had to make the order and wait three days for thousand or two thousand dollars worth. It was a three-star hassle, meaning two visits to the local bank and waiting in line to get what you ordered.
Finished with the trip but you still got a hundred bucks of Francs on you? Well....you only had three options. Save it for the next trip, which might be a year away. Or you could exchange at the border and get a loss on your money. Or you went back to the bank to exchange it. Note, the banks didn’t take the coins. Today, I still have around eight different currency collections of coins from prior to the Euro era. Worthless for the most part, but still about 100 dollars worth.
In the five years prior to the Euro....everyone from industry, the banking sector, commerce, and tourist groups were literally begging for the Euro. Didn’t matter what country it was....they all knew that a common currency was the only way to go.
The mistake made here....there should have been only six nations in the original group (France, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Lux, Belgium). There should have been a ten-year delay for any further members. There should have been a insider audit and an outsider audit of any nation applying to be a member. Countries with naturally corrupt finances (Cyprus, Greece, Italy for example)....should have been kept out and never admitted. The original six countries would have had a period to mature and develop stability.
At present, it’s hard to say what will happen. If Germany leaves the Euro (it is possible in the scenarios)...then I think the Euro collapses within two years. German national elections are in the fall of 2017. Presently, there are only three national topics for the election: immigration, crime, and Greece/Euro. It might be an interesting election to watch.
But German leaders wanted to dominate Europe. Now they dominate Eurpope. The good and the bad.
Ein Volk, eine Währung, ... - well, you know the rest.
Regards,
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