Euro slowly unravelling !!

[Cyberman]

What a shame.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p..._y4&refer=home

[foritisme]

Why do you want it to fail ? Surely it will have a bad impact on us too ??

[OwlHoot]

There's also an article on the Euro by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in today's Telegraph:

Monetary union has left half of Europe trapped in depression

Events are moving fast in Europe. The worst riots since the fall of Communism have swept the Baltics and the south Balkans. An incipient crisis is taking shape in the Club Med bond markets. S&P has cut Greek debt to near junk. Spanish, Portuguese, and Irish bonds are on negative watch.

Dublin has nationalised Anglo Irish Bank with its half-built folly on North Wall Quay and €73bn (£65bn) of liabilities, moving a step nearer the line where markets probe the solvency of the Irish state.

A great ring of EU states stretching from Eastern Europe down across Mare Nostrum to the Celtic fringe are either in a 1930s depression already or soon will be. Greece's social fabric is unravelling before the pain begins, which bodes ill.

Each is a victim of ill-judged economic policies foisted upon them by elites in thrall to Europe's monetary project – either in EMU or preparing to join – and each is trapped.

As UKIP leader Nigel Farage put it in a rare voice of dissent at the euro's 10th birthday triumph in Strasbourg, EMU-land has become a Völker-Kerker – a "prison of nations", to borrow from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This week, Riga's cobbled streets became a war zone. Protesters armed with blocks of ice smashed up Latvia's finance ministry. Hundreds tried to force their way into the legislature, enraged by austerity cuts.

...

I wonder what AtW makes of it all.

[DiscoStu]

There's also an article on the Euro by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in today's Telegraph:

Monetary union has left half of Europe trapped in depression



I wonder what AtW makes of it all.

hope AtW tells someone else what he thinks of it all instead of us.

[Doggy Styles]

And it is all so predictable.

[MrMark]

This commentator gives reasons why there won't be anyone seriously leaving the Euro:
voxeu
Isn't it actually the case that countries are currently
joining the Euro (Slovakia this month, and according to the Bloomberg article Hungary will join soon)?
Incidentally, it seems people with certain prejudices have a fixed idea about certain country's indebtedness. Which country do you suppose has greater personal debt - germany or Italy?

Household debt as a percentage of disposable income

Denmark 260%
Netherlands 246%
New Zealand 181%
Australia 173%
United Kingdom 159%
Ireland 141%
United States 135%
Sweden 134%
Japan 132%
Canada 126%
Germany 107%
Spain 107%
Finland 89%
France 89%
Italy 59%

Time.com blog

[MrMark]

It does seem that as Britain's decline speeds up, certain people look with glee to any possible setbacks in our neighbouring countries (ironically they are often the sternest critics of Gordon Brown's policies). The problem is, we are all dependent on imports and exports nowadays. It's going to benefit none of us if whole countries melt down.

[minestrone]

Aye, but in Italy you have to share a room with your grandparents until you are 40, or until they peg it. Whatever comes first.

[MrMark]

Aye, but in Italy you have to share a room with your grandparents until you are 40, or until they peg it. Whatever comes first.

But the women!!!

[MrMark]

Interesting article on why the UK may be forced to join the Euro:

will hutton

Britain's problem is threefold. We have an American-scale property crisis and a credit crunch in our own banking system. But on top, we were uniquely reliant on foreign banks and foreign capital. They support up to a third of all UK lending, and they have gone bust or fled. Britain's banks are in no position to plug the gap. So, the UK government has to put the system back together with a weak, non-reserve currency....

My view is that the financial markets will accept actual spending only if Britain pre-announces that after financial stabilisation has worked, it intends to join the euro - otherwise we will find ourselves in the same position as Iceland.

These are the grimmest economic circumstances since the 1930s. Lives and businesses are being wrecked as I write. There will be little appetite for my proposed measures; how much better to hope that we can muddle through, looking for "green shoots" of recovery and doing little radical.

But after last week the government - and the opposition - have to get serious. Britain is on the edge.