Is the end nigh for the Euro? [vol. 3]
Discussion
Claudia Skies said:
Blib said:
Looks like Hosker agrees with us.
Your selective bold is a feeble attempt to divert attention away from the main point.To believe that decimalisation caused, or played a significant part in, the runaway inflation of the 1970s suggests you old codgers are suffering from dementia!
Inflation was everywhere from 1969 and through the oil crises from 1973. It is pure coincidence that UK was decimalising at the same time.
"It began in 1969 with a president facing re-election. Nixon inherited a recession from Lyndon Johnson, who had simultaneously spent generously on the Great Society and the Vietnam War. Congress, despite some protests, went along with Nixon and continued to fund the war, and increased social welfare spending. In 1972, for example, both Congress and Nixon agreed to a big expansion of Social Security just in time for the elections.
"John Maynard Keynes was an influential British economist of the 1930s and 1940s. He had advocated revolutionary measures: governments should use countercyclical policies in hard times, running deficits in recessions and depressions. Before Keynes, governments in bad times had generally balanced budgets and waited for malinvestments to liquidate, allowing market forces to bring a recovery.
"Nixon's deficits were also making dollar-holders abroad nervous. There was a run on the dollar, which many foreigners and Americans thought was overvalued. Soon they were proved right. In 1971, Nixon broke the last link to gold, turning the American dollar into a fiat currency. The dollar was devalued, and millions of foreigners holding dollars, including Arab oil barons with tens of millions of petrodollars, saw the value of dollars slashed.
"In the winter of '72/ '73, Burns was soon worried about inflation. In 1973, it more than doubled to 8.8%. Later in the decade, it would go to 12%. By 1980, inflation was 14%. Was the United States about to become a Weimar Republic? Some actually thought that the great inflation was a good thing."
What I said in my original post was:
Blib said:
A similar thing occurred here in the UK with decimalisation. Everything got rounded up. And then, a bit more up.
Are you disagreeing with that? Are you?Now, a far more important thing has happened. Spock is dead. You wouldn't know too much about him. BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T THERE!
'Live long and prosper'
Some interesting stuff in this article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/01/greece_can...
DJRC said:
Well he did also say the weight of the bar has gone down as the price of it has gone up!
It would have to.Cost per unit of sale for the entire product life cycle including packaging, transportation and distribution at destination would all likely increase if allowed to in a free market. None of those factors have any direct association with the original design concept for the product ... other than making money.
jurbie said:
Just started on BBC4 'Storyville, The Great European Disaster Movie", followed by a discussion on the issues raised.
What an odd mixture of mawkishness and utter b
ks; the only pertinent comment came at the end, that it would be better to solve the problems of the EU from within rather than dissolve it. That's all well and good, but when the bawbags in charge of the trainset don't accept that anything's wrong the only available option is the 'nuclear' one.turbobloke said:
jurbie said:
Yup it was very disappointing, basically the EU is the best thing ever and if it were to go everything would be terrible.
That message would be such a surprise in something about the EU from the BBC.Oh.
I thought by the title that it was a resumé of Angus Deayton's career.
Walford said:
but the Greek and German economies had converged,
That really did amuse me.Anyway, seems we have the first visible casualty of the CHF:EUR de-peg: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-01/spectacul...
Haircuts at dawn.
jurbie said:
Just started on BBC4 'Storyville, The Great European Disaster Movie", followed by a discussion on the issues raised.
Now to get cash from Brussels to translate it for other countries.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2975005/Br...
As a long time lurker on this thread, I have very much enjoyed the discussion and opinions displayed, which gives a much richer source of information and wider views than generally received through main stream media.
I have been of the view as many on here, that the principle of having differently performing economies wrapped up in one currency, the weaker of which are sucked dry and propped up by massive amounts of debt, is bonkers, nothing more than financial recklessness of the highest order, that should at some point come crashing down.
However, now that the recent Syriza negotiations have largely played themselves out to another can kicking exercise, I really can't help but feel that the whole landscape has fundamentally changed (it probably did months, even years ago) and all traditional rules of engagement do not exist any more.
My understanding is that the majority of the population from the failing states do not want to exit the EU or give up the Euro. So no wide scale 'viva la revolucion'. Germany in essence hold the purse strings and the self serving plutocrats will impose states to remain within the union, so little political leverage for exit either. It even seems as though the markets are managed/anticipate these can kicking necessities and deal with financial wobbles.
So my question to those that know more about this than I do, is where exactly will 'the end' come from? What factors or situations will facilitate this? I can't see it any more.
I have been of the view as many on here, that the principle of having differently performing economies wrapped up in one currency, the weaker of which are sucked dry and propped up by massive amounts of debt, is bonkers, nothing more than financial recklessness of the highest order, that should at some point come crashing down.
However, now that the recent Syriza negotiations have largely played themselves out to another can kicking exercise, I really can't help but feel that the whole landscape has fundamentally changed (it probably did months, even years ago) and all traditional rules of engagement do not exist any more.
My understanding is that the majority of the population from the failing states do not want to exit the EU or give up the Euro. So no wide scale 'viva la revolucion'. Germany in essence hold the purse strings and the self serving plutocrats will impose states to remain within the union, so little political leverage for exit either. It even seems as though the markets are managed/anticipate these can kicking necessities and deal with financial wobbles.
So my question to those that know more about this than I do, is where exactly will 'the end' come from? What factors or situations will facilitate this? I can't see it any more.
warp9 said:
As a long time lurker on this thread, I have very much enjoyed the discussion and opinions displayed, which gives a much richer source of information and wider views than generally received through main stream media.
I have been of the view as many on here, that the principle of having differently performing economies wrapped up in one currency, the weaker of which are sucked dry and propped up by massive amounts of debt, is bonkers, nothing more than financial recklessness of the highest order, that should at some point come crashing down.
However, now that the recent Syriza negotiations have largely played themselves out to another can kicking exercise, I really can't help but feel that the whole landscape has fundamentally changed (it probably did months, even years ago) and all traditional rules of engagement do not exist any more.
My understanding is that the majority of the population from the failing states do not want to exit the EU or give up the Euro. So no wide scale 'viva la revolucion'. Germany in essence hold the purse strings and the self serving plutocrats will impose states to remain within the union, so little political leverage for exit either. It even seems as though the markets are managed/anticipate these can kicking necessities and deal with financial wobbles.
So my question to those that know more about this than I do, is where exactly will 'the end' come from? What factors or situations will facilitate this? I can't see it any more.
I can only see it coming when a government is elected that was based on leaving the EU/Euro. I have been of the view as many on here, that the principle of having differently performing economies wrapped up in one currency, the weaker of which are sucked dry and propped up by massive amounts of debt, is bonkers, nothing more than financial recklessness of the highest order, that should at some point come crashing down.
However, now that the recent Syriza negotiations have largely played themselves out to another can kicking exercise, I really can't help but feel that the whole landscape has fundamentally changed (it probably did months, even years ago) and all traditional rules of engagement do not exist any more.
My understanding is that the majority of the population from the failing states do not want to exit the EU or give up the Euro. So no wide scale 'viva la revolucion'. Germany in essence hold the purse strings and the self serving plutocrats will impose states to remain within the union, so little political leverage for exit either. It even seems as though the markets are managed/anticipate these can kicking necessities and deal with financial wobbles.
So my question to those that know more about this than I do, is where exactly will 'the end' come from? What factors or situations will facilitate this? I can't see it any more.
So in France you have Front National, Spain you have Podemos, UK you have UKIP etc. I think that's the only way it's realistically going to happen, other than that it will just keep getting kicked down the road.
warp9 said:
I have been of the view as many on here, that the principle of having differently performing economies wrapped up in one currency, the weaker of which are sucked dry and propped up by massive amounts of debt, is bonkers, nothing more than financial recklessness of the highest order, that should at some point come crashing down.
There's nothing wrong with having different performing economies all using the same currency. Leicester uses the same currency as the City of London and New Jersey the same as New Mexico. The difference is those 2 examples use massive, open, fiscal transfers from rich to poor at the national and federal level in the form of taxation and spending. The Eurozone is no different except that they can't admit to taxing Germans in order to pay Greek pensions so they have to go through the debt farce we are witnessing. So long as the fiscal transfers continue, in whatever form they take, there's no reason to think it will come crashing down. Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff