My two centimes worth:
First:
In my view a single currency for an economic zone, comprised of multiple countries, only really works if the is one monetary and fiscal policy for the entire region.
Allowing every country to have its own fiscal and monetary polices, subject to some rules (but not strictly policed nor confirmed by the central regulatory body ((i.e. Brussels)) and then expecting stability of the currency is, to my mind, madness.
However, every country in the EU wanted to keep their own sovereignty, so they would not acquiesce to some faceless EU bureaucrats. This is understandable. However, IMO, this is unworkable with the idea of a single currency.
In addition to the 20 different fiscal and monetary polices, there are 20 different sets of polices on everything else. In particular, social and labour polices, so if the retirement age in Greece (or Spain or Italy) is in the early 50’s to early 60’s, while in Germany (the UK, Netherlands etc) it is in the late 60’s (67 or 68 year old, for Germany, I think), then I can’t imagine the Germans happily paying for the Greek’s early retirement, while Germans have to work a good 10 or more years beyond that.
These things can only cause instability for the currency.
Ironically, the country that stands to gain the most from a devalued Euro is Germany, because they are an exporting nation. Hence, a low Euro means their products become cheaper, and thus more desirable.
Second:
There is plenty of blame to go around for the current Euro problem.
Now, it is true that the Greeks fudged the figures to get into the Euro AND the level of corruption and tax avoidance there is enormous, but the EU’s examiners should have been able to ferret this out. (Maybe they so badly wanted the single currency union to float, they ignored the problem AND/OR, perhaps, the EU monitors were bribed to overlook the issue).
It is also undoubtedly true that US investment banks caused a shitstorm of problems in the financial markets, because the Bush administration did not want to bother forcing (or making them comply with existing) regulations on them, so they merrily went on their greedy way, to hell with outcome.
US investment banks did do a debt swap with the Greeks, but these are not really that unusual if you are used to dealing with or understanding derivatives. BUT, if they did so to conceal the Greeks’ level of debt , then I think they should be slapped with much more regulations in such dealings.
Also, as pointed out, other EU countries have allowed their debts to balloon, so to single out the "PIGS" is somewhat unfair. If the UK had not allowed itself to be tricked into Iraq war (that fucking cunt, Blair
), I'll bet that they would now have a surplus. (Silly buggers)
,Yea japan is a mad situation! when things are to high people struggle but when prices come down no one makes any money.
