NYT article on the Euro

[MillCreek]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/magazine/16Europe-t.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all

An article by Paul Krugman on the state of the Euro and the European Union.  If I was running the central bank in Germany, I would be gnashing my teeth right now.  If Germany decides to ever stop essentially subsidizing the economically-weaker countries of the EU, that should be all she wrote for the EU. 

[AZRedhawk44]

I was talking with some friends about this, Friday afternoon.  One wanted to move to Italy.  I started laughing, saying not to go until they reverted back to the Lyra for currency and had a few years to stew in their own juices and contemplate the idea of work, exports and welfare programs.

It's been writ large, between the lines of every analyst to write about the Euro, that Germany is sick and tired of the Euro and their role as subsidizer of all aging ex-hipster-former-blue-blooded-nobility nations in Europe that want to try "nice guy Socialism."

Once they go back to the Deutchmark, say good bye to the Euro.  And most of the economies of the "EU."

That was a failed experiment from the get-go.  Any so-called nation-state that has a 560 page Constitution, doesn't have enough in common from which to build a Nation.  All that holds them together is force of law rather than a spirit of camaraderie and nationalism.

[Northwoods]

I've been saying for a solid 10+ years that the EU was going to fail.  I figured back then it might take until 2020-2030 or so.  Might just happen sooner than that.

Not only are they all (more or less) socialist countries, which alone would doom them to failure, but they also have, what, 2 dozen (give or take) different languages and major cultures.  Here in the USA there might be 57 states (according to POTUS), and several significant cultural regions, but we have only 1 major language among the citizens, state boundaries don't connote millenia old ethnic and religious lines, and (except for a few years in the 1860's) one common currency since the ratification of the COTUS.

The EU has all the bad and none of the good.  No surprise that even leftists like Krugman are recognizing that.

[just Warren]

Ireland is printing its own Euros and that is going to push things along just a little faster. And by little faster, I mean warp speed into the void Mr. Euro.

[AZRedhawk44]

Ireland is printing its own Euros and that is going to push things along just a little faster. And by little faster, I mean warp speed into the void Mr. Euro.

Ha!

I always wondered about that... who had the authority to start up a Euro printing press or flood banks with more 1's and 0's.

Evidently, according to the Irish (and soon the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Italians and the Greeks), every member state can!

Ha!