Had Greece kept the drachma, it would never have got into its present mess: the markets would have stepped in and imposed a corrective years ago. It was the ludicrous idea that Greek and German debt were interchangeable that fuelled the artificial boom, and so made inevitable the ensuing slump. Yet, even now, Lucas Papademos, the Eurocrat who heads the Brussels-imposed junta national government in Athens, tells his subjects: ‘We must continue our efforts with decisiveness, to stay in the euro, to make sure we do not waste the sacrifices and do not turn the crisis into an uncontrolled and disastrous bankruptcy.’ Disastrous bankruptcy, eh, Lucas? As opposed to what you have now, you mean?
Like Daniel says “the material well-being of their electorates” has never been the aim of the Eurocrats. An EUSSR and a trading bloc competitive to the US has been the aim all along.
Buy guns. Lots of them. The same thing is coming here.
the market always always always wins
Don’t just buy guns…buy shares in ammunition manufacturers…
Greece is a problem, but I am beginning to wonder if being on the Drachma would solve their issues. Hungary is still on the Forint and it is heading towards disaster as well.
In fact the government just confscated pension funds (RRSPS) to fund itself and is now about to grab the foreign reserves in the Central Bank to do the same thing.
And this is from a supposedly Conservative Government.
While the Forint devaluing has provided some adjustment there is no replacement for good government, or should I say good people in government.
Hungary is becoming a very ugly place and the outmigration of people and money is significant.
Stephen, why do you think the term is “registered”, for one way out in these times. Sad, but this is the end result of socialism, the Americans have the same process currently in full swing, as all these euroweenies have been flogging for the past 40 years, “no one needs to really work, we the government will look after you”, well us small producers and some larger producers are getting real tired of no dental or health plans while our taxes and gas/power bills are going through the roof to fund stupid green garbage SCAMS and huge pension funds for the 9to5’s. This is what europe has done to their gullible, anyone who could look at the likes of Herman Von Rompouy, and not see a slithering snake, is disconnecter from reality. Thanks for Daniel and Farage and Klaus, after that all I see is euroweenies, to weak to spank their own monkeys.
Is this the end for democracy in Europe when Brussels can install unelected people to run the country, as in Italy and Greece. Hopefully Britain will be able to get away without being too scathed, though I don’t know that Cameron has the wherewithal to do so.
Hey folks…is Herman an actor? Did he play the evil little bugger in the first “Raiders of the lost ark” film? You remember, the guy who burned his hand grabbing the emulate in the burning bar?
Stephen, you’re probably right but I’m not sure the issue is whether Greece would be better off had it stayed with the drachma but whether the rest of Europe (and the world) would be better off. I think the answer’s yep.
Read “Germany” as Alberta and Saskatchewan and “Greece” as Ontario and Quebec.
Greece being on the drachma gives greece options that are not available to Greece on the euro.
The underlying problem is financial irresponsibility. Eventually you run out of other peoples money.
Greece on the euro.
The underlying problem is financial irresponsibility.
Eventually you run out of other peoples money.
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Stupid Greeks!
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How many times has President Obama told them to get their fiscal house in order?
Jay,
This is true. My point is that it isnt a silver bullet. You need a government that is willing and able to work those advantages. Apparently the Hungarians have the options, have exercised them through massive devaluation and are still stuck.
The UK, while no paragon of virtue, is trying to take advantage of having its own currency. Just not sure if anyone has actually engaged in proper fiscal discipline by giving up their currency, which is what this was supposed to do.
Main point. Whether you have your own currency or not doesnt matter, ultimately, if you elect bad and profligate governments. Your own currency might just isolate the problem to your own country better…implication, the Euro countries should have been much pickier letting countires in and they should kick them out before they cause issues.
As for the US. Having its own currency is buying them time, but without a change in government they will be like Hungary not Greece. People will have wealth sonfiscated from them and their wealth will be forcibly devalued. That will be truely ugly.
Imagine us having Mexico like living conditions on our southern border.
Stephen,
I think that Argentina is the most accurate example. Confiscated pensions, controlling export of currency, spiraling inflation and interest rates all a result of abandoning debt obligations because they could not afford to repay.
Just pulled out my copy of Maragaret Thatcher The Downing Street years and started revisiting her arguments against the EMU in 1990, she truly was principled and brilliant.
From memory she stated something to the effect that her detractors were brilliant minds that thought they had the intelligence to control markets,not an exact quote “when you try to buck the market, the market bucks you.” She talked about it creating a centralized unelected brussels and the dangers that would bring….her vision and arguments were spot on, every media outlet in the world should be highlighting these truths and appologizing for their ignorance.
Its communism regardless of what they pretend to call it, a social collective of a few unelected bureaucrats redistributing the wealth of the middle class while keeping their truly “rich” friends close. There are no elections to change that fact democratically.
Canadians are not that far behind with socialist Liberal increases of tax dollars to spread to whomever they classify as “the less fortunate” around the world (and at home) without any say from the people they sourced the money from. The largest difference is that we can vote them out and elect governments that redistribute your wealth less to some places and more to other places of their choosing.
The return of the Drachma would allow the Greeks to devalue their currency so as to avoid standing up to their unionized entitled sloth of citizenry directly by allowing exchange rate adjustments to reflect their low productivity. Openly rolling back wages and entitlements doesn’t seem to work well politically. As to these characteristics being unique to Greeks, one could substitute Quebec, California, Spain…… etc.
The anti-industrial revolution is now well advanced and the barbarians are through the gates.
Too much Government World wide with no brakes on any of it.
I don’t buy this. Greece has had a long history of sovereign defaults long before they ever joined the euro.
Very much like Argentina, they’ve ended up in default with governments that were democratic and authoritarian, while using their own currency and while using someone else’s. In Argentina it was a peg to the dollar rather than using the Euro, but effectively the same thing.
Some countries just have a pattern of financial irresponsibility. At the moment quite a lot of them are adopting this behaviour.
The idea of Greece joining the Euro zone was doomed from the beginning. Why should Germans work to 65 and beyond so that lazy Greeks can retire on full government pension at 55. It never should have happened and now they’re threatening the world’s economy with their financial stupidity.