Comments on: The euro breakup thrill ride begins

By: DrJJJJ

DrJJJJ — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:57:08 +0000

France is a muslim state now so they should be able to get some help and further influence from the middle east! I wouldn’t want to be a French women about now!

By: alanchristopher

alanchristopher — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:46:43 +0000

The problem is that no one except China is doing the basics. Sticking money in banks won’t help. Banks must lend money to small businesses that hire most new workers and provide pay checks, thereby creating new customers. There is no jobless recovery because a jobless recovery would be a customerless recovery, and that doesn’t work. China’s 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015) develops central and western provinces with infrastructure and JOBS and PAYCHECKS to create CUSTOMERS and run their economy and pay TAXES that will yield a $500 billion internal budget SURPLUS for 2011. China planned to reduce its trade surplus by 20% but foreign natural disasters kept the reduction to 10%. Infrastructure plans set the growth rate to fall to 9.0% until USE of infrastructure would cause the growth rate to rise again, but foreign natural disasters have kept domestic growth at 9.4%. The point is that few read Xinhua to understand the technocrats with degrees in science, engineering, technology, business, and economics who run China and see which tactics might work in the West. The US prefers politicians, preachers, and propagandists. Fortunately, the fall of Greece will bring down Italy, the EU, and the US into a depression that will last a decade, and the West can study China’s successes and determine which parts of China’s system may work in the West as it tries to recover.

By: DrJJJJ

DrJJJJ — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:20:43 +0000

France is now a muslim country so count them out, Germans can’t work anymore overtime and most of Southern Europe is too bust drinking their way through long lunches to care!

By: sarkozyrocks

sarkozyrocks — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:24:08 +0000

This guy has been right all along on the Eurozone…his analysis and solutions are spot-on. Debate all you want, but this is what is going to happen next:
http://jackworthington.wordpress.com/201 1/11/09/reality-hits-the-eurozone-finall y/

By: mattdebord

mattdebord — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:40:55 +0000

Felix: Krugman, Wolf, yourself, others: As much as we see this as a political and financial crisis, is the key problem that the euro is losing intellectual support? That is, it’s impossible to defend as an idea, even if it might be able to survive in some technical sense?

By: fred5407

fred5407 — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:42:21 +0000

I think that countries leaving the Eurozone might be better off. I think the power grab was to give the countries all the money they could borrow, and then they would come under the power of the WTO and the world bank. Then they would lose their freedom to manage their country. I believe that Bill Clinton sold out the United States to these same people and we are reaping the crop sowed by Bill and Hillary. We in the US are now as sick as Greece and Italy, but we are still in denial of the problem.

By: scyth3

scyth3 — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:06:24 +0000

@johnhhaskell – that’s 7 million less to join england, living alone and beyond any influence:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/11/09 /uk-europe-uk-banks-idUKTRE7A863O201111 09

(quote) “An argument presented by the Swedes or the Polish carries far more weight than one that’s presented by the UK at the moment,” said Cummings, Chief Executive of lobby group TheCityUK.”

So what else you got either?

By: johnhhaskell

johnhhaskell — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:37:58 +0000

@Dan85 – in other words, the Baltics will do anything to join any Western club so that they get as far as they can from Russian influence. Great! That’s 7 million people if all 3 join.

Who else you got?

By: pavlaki

pavlaki — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:43:53 +0000

I would like to see ‘a’ Euro survive but not a Euro zone made up of the current members. There will always be too many strains existing as a result of divergent economies and life styles. If Germany, Austria, Holland, Finland and maybe France were to pull out then the Euro could survive ( devalued) for the remaining countries. Germany could remove it’s veto of the ECB printing Euros allowing debt to be purchased. It would of course cost Germany dear as it will be owed a lot of money in the devalued Euro’s but probably not as much as if the entire Euro zone crashes.

If a tightly controlled ‘northern’ Euro zone were created then I could see the UK joining at some future date.

While they are at it could they reform the EU to make it a democratically elected body, much smaller in size and cost and to clean out the enormous amount of waste of money that exists within the current EU. Imagine – an EU that was popular with it’s citizens! Now there’s a thought.

By: ektope

ektope — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:04:59 +0000

The wishful thinking of a typical englishman since day one of the birth of Euro.It will remain a wishfull thinking as the Euro is here to stay strong unlike the Britsh pound that will be constantly devalued and eventually became an ordinary irrelevant currency.

By: Couch77

Couch77 — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:04:20 +0000

Forget the euro. Forget the US dollar. Both are riddled in debt and are as worthless as the paper they are written on. There is only one true form of money, and it has been money for thousands of years. The only real money is gold and silver in the form of gold or silver coin or bullion held in your own hands. Take whatever money you have in the bank out of the bank, and buy gold or silver bullion. Bury the bullion in your backyard or put it in a safe deposit box that is not connected to a bank, and you will preserve your wealth through this crisis. Gold and Silver is the only real form of money. It has been money since before the days Jesus Christ walked on the earth. The ECB, The German banks, the French banks, the Italian banks do not have enough gold in their vaults to cover their debts, if they did, they wouldn’t be the position they are in today. They foolishly sold their gold and silver years ago. Their currency is backed by nothing but paper, fresh air and an empty IOU. Gold and Silver are way, way undervalued. Gold and Silver today is on special, buy it by the truckload, and you will preserve your wealth. Go to http://www.gata.org for more information on how to preserve your wealth through this crisis. BUY GOLD AND SILVER BULLION.

By: scyth3

scyth3 — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:42:49 +0000

Felix, this tastes more of lice and slime in your soda

By: wirk

wirk — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:12:56 +0000

Felix Salmon, you produced Red Herring here. The number of such herrings is growing and they are smelling even more badly since becoming The Doom Predictor is a promise to easy money and fame at a very, very low cost.

The arguments are smelly since in the case of frozen liquidity the ECB has the same mandate as FED in preventing serious market distortions. FED bought how many trillions of US paper? Bank of England also got its part? So the ECB will do it too. A trillion or two of euros will make the ECB on par with the others and, as their example shows, the problems will disappear.

By: GraceS88

GraceS88 — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:39:41 +0000

A great article here: http://tinyurl.com/6g53oqf pointing out what the eurozone was initially set out to do, how it has failed on so many parts and the conflict between those that have worked with those that haven’t! All in all, pretty much a failed system!

By: reuterskostas

reuterskostas — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 08:21:11 +0000

When Helmut Kohl of Germany and Francois Miterand of France started the process for EU and led the grounds for the Eurozone, there was discussion on whether the unification should go a few steps ahead soon (fiscal unification and central banks extension of role). Both agreed that this would be hard to sell to the electorates, however, both agreed that a future crisis would bring the leaders of the time face to face with the question of full unification and the latter will opt for that.

I am not sure if the EU leaders at this moment have the “weight” necessary to take bold decisions. The electorates are certainly disgruntled with the EU experiment and referendums will certainly lead to the break up of EUzone. You see Democracy can only work when people are “educated”, “informed” and “calm”. And people now are not fully informed and not calm at all. Even in ancient Greece, Athens, where democracy was born, in times of crisis people elected a so called Tyrant. A person with extraordinary authority to take decisions and lead through the crisis. This is what we need now, people with guts. See what is happening in Greece, where spineless politicians are eating the time while Greek people observe astonished, unable to believe how incompetent are the people comprising the political system.

There are solutions for an interim unification which can act as a bridge for a greater unifications (see links below), however i am not sure if we have enough time to enter into such decisions.

http://www.levyinstitute.org/publication s/?docid=1424
http://www.levyinstitute.org/publication s/?docid=1380
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/
You see we live through historic moments which will lead to dramatic changes. Even Dan Brown would never imagine to write a book were:

US is battling to resolve its deficit problem and insolvent banks/finance institutions/pension funds while trying to support European Union (in order to save its Money Market Mutual Funds from failing, in order to maintain its largest trading partner, and in order to stop one more Lehman event). And of course is trying to tackle the dilution of its role as the superpower.
EU is facing for the face time the ultimate question: to unite or to divorce. While at the same time tries to save its insolvent banks (which have 5 times the assets of the US banks) and in parallel faces tremendous imbalances between surplus countries and deficit countries.
China is trying to cool down the asset bubbles in order to avoid a burst. But also faces an increasingly aging population and is trying to assess its role as superpower and global lender. Meanwhile their scheme of increasing domestic demand and enlargement of the middle class is not progressing as it was planned and they face internal forces which seek change.
Israel and Palestine are still in “locked horns” position
North Korea is facing tremendous problems while the regime does not want to let go
Iran is armed and US/GCC is increasing the tensions sighting IAEA reports on nuclear weapons
MENA region is boiling following the removal of the previous regimes and the realization that there is no real alternative proposal
Turkey walks the fine line between the geopolitical partner of US/West in the region and the Islamic/Secular model leader of the Islamic World (but they forget that they are not Arabs)
Africa is raising steam (Somalia, Nigeria etc) while at the same time China has entered a colonization scheme similar to what Europe did in US and for almost similar reasons
Japan is been wounded severely by the natural disasters (which followed a lost decade of stagflation) while at the same time this event and others exposed the deeply corrupt nature of it’s political and business elite
India is stumbling while trying walking with it’s “democratic legs”, and Pakistan is not a good neighbor for them or for the Afganistan
Iraq is left on its own devices (more or less) while GCC would like to have this country positioned to keep busy Iran

The pieces are set on the chessboard. What is going to be the next move?

Kostis,
Doha, Qatar