Another op-ed to bore Danvion.

Another News Corp title? I'm stunned that a Murdoch-owned newspaper is taking an anti-Euro stance. Stunned.

I'm surprised that you didn't bring any actual facts, Mach. Like the downgrading of Italy by S&P, or today's IMF briefing which notes that the two threats to the global economy are in Europe and the USA. I could stand to debate the issue and concede points if they were based on stuff like that, rather than some pompously written piece of prose that (yawn) quotes Bismarck and has the favourite American Euro-doommonger tropes of a low birthrate and the spectre of 'Islamicisation' (more 'yawn').

Maybe - maybe - Greece will leave the Euro. But maybe there will instead be a greater fiscal union between the currency members, one that would actually enforce the rules that could be bent under separate budgets. I doubt that from where you are you have a better perspective than others do on it (and given that your 'evidence' seems to be much like that of ricky in his debating - searching for an op-ed that he agrees with and presenting it as evidence that eminent writers agree with him).

They won't stop being op-eds until it happens, Dan. That's the nature of prognostication. Doesn't mean it ain't correct.

Go back to sleep, though, I'm sure the rioting hordes will wake you when the time comes.

Machiavelli wrote:They won't stop being op-eds until it happens, Dan. That's the nature of prognostication. Doesn't mean it ain't correct.

And they being prognostications doesn't make them correct either, Mach. That's my point.

Go back to sleep, though, I'm sure the rioting hordes will wake you when the time comes.

Oh, you mentioned riots. How original.

I'm by no means asleep, I'm just trying to listen to more than one strand of thought. Perhaps instead of lapping up the op-eds that agree with you, you could try that approach - see if there are any things around that may challenge your preconceptions?

danivon wrote: But maybe there will instead be a greater fiscal union between the currency members, one that would actually enforce the rules that could be bent under separate budgets.

I thought I read somewhere in the last couple of days that this didn't look likely. Personally, I can't see it happening because it would seem to require essentially giving up soveriegnty. I am not sure Europe is ready for that.

Perhaps, Dan. You'll recall that this conversation starting about six or seven years ago, when I predicted that the structural problems in the Euro would inevitably cause it collapse. At that time I said the alternatives were fiscal union or a splintering of the currency union. As the former did not seem likely (and still doesn't), that left the latter. You and others laughed off my predictions as wildly pessimistic. As it turns out, the faults I identified have been precisely those that have brought about the current crisis, which has proceeded pretty much as I predicted (albeit about 2 years after I predicted it would). Now I'm joined in foreseeing doom by many widely recognized monetary authorities. Does that mean I'm right? Of course not--and I still hope I'm not. But it does seem that your poo-pooing of my assessment of the risk was overly optimistic. So if anyone needs his preconceptions challenged, Dan, it would appear to be you. The European economic system (including that of Britain, Switzerland and the other nations that have not adopted the Euro) teeters on the brink, largely as a result of the ill-conceived common currency project. IMHO, the move necessary to save the Euro--fiscal union--is politically impossible. Accordingly, the Euro will collapse. The sooner the Euro governments recognize that fact and begin preparations for the event, the better.

Machiavelli wrote:Perhaps, Dan. You'll recall that this conversation starting about six or seven years ago, when I predicted that the structural problems in the Euro would inevitably cause it collapse. At that time I said the alternatives were fiscal union or a splintering of the currency union. As the former did not seem likely (and still doesn't), that left the latter.

Yes, because it's a strict dichotomy of outcome, and 'unlikeliness' is the same as 'never gonna happen' Forgive me if I smelled a logical flaw or two.

The European economic system (including that of Britain, Switzerland and the other nations that have not adopted the Euro) teeters on the brink, largely as a result of the ill-conceived common currency project.

Really? Could you tell our government that? They were elected on the basis that the economic problems here were based on internal fiscal policy and a banking crisis that started in the US and UK and spread around the world. Despite much of the Tory party being opposed to the EU, it's odd that they didn't (and still don't) make the argument that you do here. Mind you, they are morons.

IMHO, the move necessary to save the Euro--fiscal union--is politically impossible.

And I submit that this as this just an opinion, in actuality it's quite possible that fiscal union is politically the end result - while being very hard to achieve. Germany and France would be the main objectors, but they would actually be the main losers if the Euro were to collapse.

The problem, Danvion, is that Europe is out of time. The collapse is nearly upon us.

Thank you for the corroborating data, Chicken Licken.

Endgame is well underway. Upcoming events: Greek referendum fails (unless the Greek government falls first, six of one, half dozen of the other); Portugal, Spain and Italy demand "voluntary" haircuts; France nationalizes its banks (and either stiffs their creditors, triggering a wave of insolvencies on this side of the Atlantic or goes the route of Ireland and joins the PIIGS); and finally, the German electorate admits the obvious--that they can't bail out the world--and bails from the whole misbegotten experiment.

I wondered where you were a couple of weeks ago after the first Slovakian parliament vote.

Just watching the slow-motion train wreck, Dan. Still think all is well, my friend?

Even Krugman gets it.

Machiavelli wrote:Just watching the slow-motion train wreck, Dan. Still think all is well, my friend?

I never said all was well. There are certainly issues, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with your doom-mongery.

I've always been of the opinion that the Euro will survive mainly because of the amount of political capital that had already been sunk into the project making it almost irreversible. My belief was always that when it came to the crunch Germany and France would do what it takes to save the Euro, no matter the cost to their own people and the pain they have to inflict upon the weaker members. Papandreou's decision to hold a referendum has shaken that resolve somewhat. It seems to offer the perfect opportunity for a wildcard agent (ie, the wishes of the people in a democracy, something of an alien concept to your typical EU bigwig) to blow away all the best laid plans.

Right now I'm not sure whether I'd rather the Euro does simply collapse. the shport term pain will be considerable of course, but perhaps no worse than the long term suffering that will have to be imposed upon us all just to keep this monstrous vanity project on life-support. The price for saving the Euro appears increasingly to be the death of democracy in Europe, which isn't a price I'm willing to pay. Ok, that may be hyperbolic to some extent, but there again it may not. Certainly it's now been acknowledged that the Euro can't function without centralised fiscal policies, so in effect every member of the Eurozone will be expected to sign away the power to set their own tax rates to unelected, unaccountable institutions run by a body (the EU) which is notoriously corrupt and hasn't even been able to get it's own accounts signed off by the auditors for the last 16 years. Quite how this is supposed to be democratic I have no idea, but I do know that I want no part of it and I'm glad that Britain never joined the Euro.