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back to article Eurozone crisis: We're all dooomed! Here's why

Quite what is actually happening over the Eurozone I can't actually tell you: it's not that things change too fast to write about them, it's that things change to fast to read about them. Berlusconi still PM? Italian bond yields over or under 7 per cent? That changes as often and as fast as Berlusconi does condoms. France to go …

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  1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    @Soros

    It will be interesting if the truth ever comes out as to why Britain didn't join.

    Did Brown have the 'real' figures for Greece/Portugal/etc - and if he did why didn't Kohl?

    Was it just domestic politics - he would have lost the NF vote if he had introduced foreign money?

    Was he afraid of the house price boom if interest rates suddenly halved to German levels.

    Did the city fear losing it's currency trading?

    Did the Americans 'persuade' Blair to stay out to keep the Euro cap under the $ and stop it become the default oil currency?

    Since British banks are still on the hook for euro debt anyway it's not necessarily such a blessing.

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    1. ThomH
      Reply Icon

      Per some of the sources, it was simply a side effect of the decade long Blair v Brown spat. Brown found a lever over a crucial national policy that was unambiguously Chancellor stuff and dedicated himself to being contrary. Meanwhile the public position became entrenched of its own accord.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        One obvious thing.

        Just think how much money is made out of gambling on exchange rates, manipulating them and then creaming off a fat commission everytime one sells money for money. Despite the cost to every private citizen and the tax on every import and export thus imposed on trade and industry, the financial powers-that-be know which side their bread is buttered and b-g-r the rest of us.

        Clever and not-so-clever newspaper propaganda easily persuades the rest of us to support the corrupt policy with spurious reasoning.

        1 1
    2. Nigel 11
      Reply Icon

      Give Brown some credit where it's due

      He was an idiot in political terms, but not so intellectually. I'm willing to believe that he simply knew where the Euro project would end up, and decided that we'd be part of that shipwreck only over his (politically) dead body. I think history may be kinder to him than his comtemporaries. Blair was the worst PM we've ever had. Gordon was by no means the worst chancellor. If Blair had had his man (boot-licker) as chancellor, it would be the UK at the centre of the Euro crisis, not Italy.

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  2. Wang N Staines

    Reboot

    I don't expect a UKIP fanboi to see the single currency benefits.

    His/her attitude to immigrants is well known, so the idea of some sort (involving foreigners) isn't going to go down too well.

    1. The greek cooked the books, thanks to our friendly bank in the USA. So the Greek is the rotten apple which helps the Euro down the slope.

    2. Every government is in debt, just so happen the banks can see preys(PIIGS) and went in for the kill.

    3. Politicians/Regulators turned a blind eye to their banker friends' evil greed.

    13 28
    1. theastrodragon
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      So enlighten us, what ARE the benefits of the single currency then???

      7 1
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Well, none if you like being taxed with the commissions and work for every import and export, the manipulation by countries devalueing in a race to the bottom, the obscuring of cost differences behind manipulated exchange rates and, on a personal level, the sheer transparency of how much things cost when one travels outside one's own national area.

        I assume you support the financial industry in all its corrupt glory then. You must be delighted at how easy the see-sawing of the pound provides certainty for British importers and exporters.

        Is it fair that the poorer parts of NW England or N. Devon have to suffer the same currency as the wealthy South-East? Up with the Cornish pound and down with the London pound.

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    2. SkippyBing
      Reply Icon

      And the single currency benefits are? You appear to have failed to list them...

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      1. Adam-the-Kiwi
        Reply Icon
        Facepalm

        > So enlighten us, what ARE the benefits of the single currency then???

        > And the single currency benefits are? You appear to have failed to list them...

        The fairly obvious one, I'd have thought, is ease of trade.

        Ancillary benefits include ease of travel, price transparency, wage transparency...

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        1. SkippyBing
          Reply Icon

          The fairly obvious one, I'd have thought, is ease of trade.

          Fine, and in the current situation would you say that advantage was a) Worth the subsequent hassle or b) Possibly slightly oversold?

          By that argument we may as well go into a currency union with China as it's a much bigger potential market and likely to undergo much greater growth over the next few decades.

          Considering the amount of rancour the UKs currency union generates how anyone thought the benefits of 'ease of travel, price transparency' etc. would overcome the obvious contradiction in giving Greece and Germany the same currency I've got no idea. Mind you I never found it difficult travelling or even working overseas before the single currency.

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    3. Anonymous Coward 101
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Hmmmm...

      Your post was lacking in sound judgement. Talking of the 'single currency benefits' when the thing is imploding in a way critics - of the left and right - predicted ranks as an epic fail.

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    4. fajensen
      Reply Icon
      Mushroom

      *Everybody* cooked the books! That is why "they" cannot allow a single default taking place and the fraud ending up being part of the public record during bankruptcy proceedings.

      The entire EUSSR depends on a perpetually changing mixture of coercion, deception, fraud and obfuscation for its survival and growth. The single currency is no exception to that.

      5 1
      1. James Micallef Silver badge
        Reply Icon
        Childcatcher

        Mr Staines has over-generalised, that doesn't mean, as teh other commenters seem to think, that there are no benefits to a single currency. I have worked in different European Euro and non-Euro countries, and the Euro makes travelling, transferring money and business transactions A LOT easier, while bringing currency exchange and bank transfer fees to zero.

        Just because it was implemented badly, with political factors (bring is as many countries as possible, allowing France and Germany to break deficit levels) trumping economic factors, does not mean it's an inherently bad idea.

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    5. br0die
      Reply Icon
      Trollface

      Don't feed the troll

      Troll if I ever saw one. Or typical left extremist. Same thing, and all signs are there:

      1)Questioning immigration is racist

      2)My view is right, yours are wrong and here is why, it is obvious so I don't need to provide any evidence.

      3)People who don't agree with my views must be wrong in everything they say

      I have lots of this animal in my extended family, it is knowing how to handle them that makes them tolerable

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    6. John 62
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      UKIP attitude to immigrants?

      What is the UKIP attitude to immigrants? From I've seen, it must be quite good, because there's a UKIP MEP who is an immigrant.

      Are you trying to call Mr Worstall a racist? Please present some evidence.

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  3. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Spain up next

    Just wait till the general elections are over and done with on 20th November and suddenly all lines of interesting things swept under the carpet will be found.

    The outgoing government have got till the end of the year to carry out ineffectual laws dictated to them by the EU while the country is slaughtered by the markets.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about ...

    ... we change the Law?

    There is a groups of people who do that, I believe: called Governments.

    How about having a summit meeting involving all the Governments?

    It'll be the 20th, so we'll call it G20.

    Any good?

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    1. laird cummings
      Reply Icon

      There's a problem...

      ...and that is: Government is slooooooow.

      The law can be changed, but it's a *central* part of the Eurozone wich means that it will take a new treaty and ratification of such, to make the change. Don't hold your breath, waiting the change.

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    2. BrownishMonstr
      Reply Icon

      i think G20 means the 20 most powerful govs, right?

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      1. Bronek Kozicki
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        Devil

        "G20 means ..."

        why of course, it's Merkel , Sarkozy and 18 chums!

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    3. deadlockvictim
      Reply Icon

      S&M

      The EU has a government at the moment: Brussels and Frankfurt with Sarkozy & Merkel doing what's best for France & Ger.. the EU.

      Just ask the Irish. They are very happy and extremely willing to ensure that they pay for the foolishness of French & German banks.

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  5. Greg 16
    Mushroom

    The Register comments section is usually full of happy clappy EU loving "Europeans"

    I've noticed they've been kind of quiet recently, though they'll probably make do with down voting instead.

    I can't wait until we leave this corrupt EU mess :)

    18 9
    1. PyLETS
      Reply Icon
      Go

      Pro European, anti Euro

      In my view the Euro will only be a viable currency in relation to the issues Tim describes if and when treaty changes relegate nations within the Eurozone to the political status of local authorities - with no veto on sensible management decisions by the ECB overseen by a democratic process empowerered to act at a speed relevant to the way financial markets operate.

      Is that a good idea ? Probably not. Jane Jacob's book - 'Cities and the Wealth of Nations'

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs#Cities_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

      gives an excellent rationale as to why having massive state monopoly currency zones is a bad idea.

      I also think this abandonment of European multiple nationhood is unlikely to happen - what now seems more likely is that the Euro experiment flies apart. Better to have a smoother transition to a diverse and friendly Europe with borders as open to people and trade as possible, but if this current mess falls apart things could get very much worse than that. Keeping borders relatively open does require some commonality of regulations and laws.

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    2. Intractable Potsherd
      Reply Icon

      OK, Greg 16 ...

      ... I'll stop being quiet. In my opinion, being part of the EU is one of the best things that have been done during my lifetime. It has brought stability and integration with our neighbours, and slowed down the rate at which we were becoming a mere annexe of the USA, which (again in my opinion) would be intolerable. A pan-European trading group with some political power was and is logical. I'm open to discussion on whether there has been too much or too little political integration, though I err on the side of too little.

      However, I always thought, and still do, that the Single European Currency was a very bad idea, that it brought together too many countries with different ideas about what "fiscal responsibility" actually means, and that it would lead to just this sort of situation, or worse (I can still see war being a result of of what is going on).

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    3. Anomalous Cowherd Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Mushroom

      Yeah but understand the context

      Look at the history man. Europe had 30 years of warfare over 2 rounds, it was fucked financially and emotionally and by 1945 the scars were so deep they were apparently never going to heal. Now that's unthinkable, thanks to largely US insistance that French stel and German coal form the ECSC.

      It's all well and good sitting here with 70 years hindsight on an island that emerged relatively unscathed, but the EU had a purpose and it has served it well. Perfect, no, but run a thought experiment to see where we'd be if it hadn't formed. Your icon sums it up nicely.

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  6. Dogbyte
    Unhappy

    Well...

    That was a cheery read.

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  7. HP Cynic

    If the ECB printing money would really work maybe they could break or change the law rather than face the alternatives presented here.

    Meh

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    QE is not the answer

    QE is stealing from the responsible people who saved to save the bankers and BTLers who gambled and lost. The solution is not QE, it is taking the banks under state control, confiscating their cash (most of it is ours from the last bailout) so that they can no longer pose a threat to the economy, and suck money out of it each time their gambles fail.

    What amuses me most about UKIP supporters is that they argue that the EU cannot succeed because it is a union of disparate nations with disparate cultures and economies that are completely different. But this is true of the UK too - four nations with very clear identities, and an economy in London which is completely out of step with the rest of the country (largely helped by the Bank of England hosing the banks in London down with QE cash every time their stock prices fall).

    UKIP go on and on about the single European currency, while overlooking the disaster that is the single UK currency. A one-size fits all economic policy is no more apt for Europe than it is for the UK. They're petty nationalists, which in my book is even worse than europhiles.

    Break up the UK, let the various regions have their own currencies, set their own interest rates and manage their own affairs. What's good for the goose....

    14 11
    1. Why Not?
      Reply Icon

      what a good idea

      We can get free education in Scottish universities and move north for free prescriptions.

      And charge rent for all those hideous parliament buildings.

      Not sure how they will afford it though they are overspending by £19.3 Billion annually more than a third more than their revenue.

      Don't believe me they are Scottland.gov.uk figures.

      Or maybe Wales, they only spend a few (15) billion but not much information on what they bring in.

      Lets do it, I have no issue with showing my passport to travel over the border.

      Of course the first thing they will do is approach the EU for bail out funds like all the other EU countries. There will be huge blue signs around proclaiming 'This Welsh themed roundabout was installed using €2 Billion Euro from the EU'

      Previously the Roundabout would have cost £100,000 but we need to pay for all the fraud associated with an organisation that has failed to get its accounts signed off in a decade.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        @why not

        lol, love it!

        Its amazing how the Scottish govenment has brainwashed many people up here.

        Free this, Free that, 480Million on a building here, £20,000 on a table there

        And yet somehow they honestly think they are capable of running the country by its self?

        Its quite sad really and perhaps highlights the serious problem with Democracy, the Scottish govenment had the chance to make something good, fresh with out the crap thats built up over the decades in westminster, and on the face of it, thats what they are claiming, unfortunately for us, at its core, its just another corrupt missmanaged extention of Westminster.

        Shame on you Scotland.gov!

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    2. AdamWill
      Reply Icon

      slow down their, sport

      sad to say, but tim is largely right on this one, and it has little to do with banks. the greeks stuffed up their economy, which they've been doing for years, and because some idiots had the bright idea of letting them in the euro, it is now stuffing up everyone else's economies too. nothing to do with bank failures or irresponsible lending or anything here, just chronic fiscal mismanagement by greek governments since time immemorial.

      (as a card-carrying bleeding heart liberal, btw, I was never in favour of joining the Euro or staying out of it; I always pleaded lack of anything approaching the necessary specialist knowledge to determine whether joining the euro was a good idea. What I did usually object to were arguments against it that were based not on any kind of attempt to evaluate the actual benefits and drawbacks of the idea, but on tinpot Victorian British triumphalism. FWIW, anyway.)

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    3. Figgus
      Reply Icon

      "QE is stealing from the responsible people"

      This, right here, is why it should never happen. EVER.

      The Fed stole from responsible Americans 3 times, and I WISH there were rules against them being the lender of last resort as there are in the EU.

      Frankly, any person or government that thinks it is ok to spend more than you make deserves to fail, and the fools who gave them credit need to feel the sting of that default.

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    4. alexh2o
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Ok a few points here...

      Do you really believe you can just nationalise the banks and "confiscate their money"?!? If you have any true understanding about how modern economies work, in particular lending, you would realise such a statement is just illogical.

      You talk of the UK being a bunch of disparate nations and cultures just like the EU. Except for the fact that we all speak English, have a virtually identical culture, and have been in an act of union since 1801, both politically and economically. Unlike Europe who speak different languages, have very distinct cultures, were still at war with one another in 1945, and have only had a unified currency since 1995.

      You also seem to be equating all banking problems on London and saying the rest of the UK would be fine without them. So you know, the main financial institutions that needed bailing out in the UK were; Royal Bank of Scotland (Edinburgh), Halifax Bank of Scotland (Edinburgh), Northern Rock (Newcastle). The main institutions that didn't need money from the state; HSBC (London), Standard Chartered (London), Barclays (London), LloydsTSB (London) [Lloyds only needed bailing out due to taking over HBoS]. The London based banks actually didn't take any state money. The City of London's financial industry actually contributes £50odd Billion annually to the UK - or about 10% of our tax take. That helps the entire nation!

      Stop blaming the banks and start blaming the politicians!

      7 5
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Facepalm

        What you don't realise...

        ... Is that HSBC and Barclays didn't need bailing out *NOT* because they are based in London, but rather because they are true global banks who are reasonably conservative (by spreading themselves into *all* markets).

        HSBC took losses in the US, yes, but the fact that their Asian business is very strong (and Asia learnt vital lessons from their currency crisis in the 90's) balanced those losses out to a large degree. Standard Chartered is very similar to HSBC. They are very strong in Asia and have some holdings in Africa.

        Barclays took a big hit, but they decided to go to the market (i.e. the Qatari sovereign funds and others) to recapitalise. The Qataris made a shedload of cash back on their investment in Barclays when they started to sell their shares off after the banks stabilised. Having bought into one of Southern Africa's largest banks (ABSA), also stabilised them somewhat.

        LloydsTSB, HBoS, RBS are all *REGIONAL* banks with large exposures to the US and UK markets, which cost them dearly... RBS overreached themselves in trying to buy another major bank which had large exposure to the US. Ahhh joy.

        Abbey (Santander) didn't need bailouts, because again, Santander is a *global* bank with a significant exposure to Latin America which is in an economic upswing (one that has Brazil worried about the affordability of their goods in other markets - Embraer feels that their planes are becoming more expensive), and that again balanced them out.

        Alliance + Leicester and Bradford & Bingley got dinged by the Northern Rock fiasco because the banks were of similar structure and size (and the subsequent runs on their deposits started weakening them). So Santander bought them.

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      2. No such thing as an Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Holmes

        "were still at war with one another in 1945"

        They were at war because of meddling by the British, without the two world wars - the UK would have completely failed financially.

        Barclays was bailed out by the Fed, the Fed also bailed out French and German banks. The ECB doesn't have to be a lender of last resort as the Fed will do that for any banks or companies from any country

        "Stop blaming the banks and start blaming the politicians!" Their both at fault, the banks more so than the politicians.

        All the problems come down to the following:

        Fiat currency that's debit based

        Fractional reserve - which allows banks to create money out of thin air, this act is what creates 80 to 90% of all the inflation (the rest being created by central banks printing more money, which causes all the existing money to be work less).

        Central Banks, which like to expand and contract the money supply for the benefit of the few. The Fed reduced the money supply by about 30% in the late 20's resulting in the great depresion.

        The alternatives that have actually worked are no loner in use, only because the above 3 were forced into law and use by those who world gain the most: the Plutocracy.

        The things that actual work:

        - Colonial script which partly lead to the American war of independence/Revolution,

        - The green back created by Lincoln to pay for the civil war,

        - The tally stick system (which worked for about 700 years, within a few years of the bank of England being started, the UK government at the time was spending more than half its tax income on just the interest payments to the bank of England).

        - The Roman copper and brass coins which were issued debt free. Replaced by Caesar’s gold coins, while the brass and copper coins were removed from circulation, reducing the money supply.

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        1. Intractable Potsherd
          Reply Icon
          WTF?

          @No such thing as an Anonymous Coward

          "They were at war because of meddling by the British, without the two world wars - the UK would have completely failed financially."

          How the hell do you get that from. Which bit of "You have invaded Poland, and we are going to stop you" constitutes 'meddling'? DO you really think the world would have been better without Britain setting the standard and waiting for the Yanks to decide which way to turn?

          I'm all for re-visiting history, but your take on it ranks with Moon-landing conspiracy theories.

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          1. Richard 126
            Reply Icon

            @No such thing as an Anonymous Coward

            Check the following it is all easy to verify:-

            Which part of Poland has murdered tens thousands of German civilians with full support from Britain especially the British bankers do you not understand?

            On March 31, 1939, Poland received a blank check from England, which unilaterally offered to guarantee her sovereignty; not only if Germany invaded Poland, but also if Poland invaded Germany! This merely served to stiffen Polish resistance to Hitler’s genuine desire to achieve a permanent solution of all outstanding issues emanating from the Treaty of Versailles.

            During the next five months the Polish government progressively intensified the oppression, harassment of and attacks on the 1.5 million ethnic Germans living in Poland. These attacks, in which over 58 000 German civilians were killed by Poles in an orgy of savagery, culminated in the Bromberg Massacre on September 3, 1939, in which 5 500 people were murdered. These provocations and atrocities were stoically ignored. Eventually Hitler was forced to employ military intervention in order to protect the Germans in Poland.

            On August 30, 1939, in an act of great statesmanship, Hitler again offered to the Poles the Marienwerder proposals, namely retention of the existing 1919 borders, the return of Danzig (97% German), the construction of a 60-mile autobahn and rail link connecting West and East Prussia (from Schoenlanke to Marienwerder) and an exchange of German and Polish populations. On the orders of the international bankers, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, strongly advised the Poles NOT to negotiate. This is how and why World War II was started. The ensuing forced war resulted in victory for the international financiers and defeat and slavery for all the people of Europe.

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            1. Tim Worstal
              Reply Icon

              Erm

              "the Bromberg Massacre on September 3, 1939, in which 5 500 people were murdered. These provocations and atrocities were stoically ignored."

              That "stoically ignored" is a bit odd. For you've just placed the massacre two days *after* the Nazis invaded Poland.

              And there were rather a lot of killings of Poles in Bromberg by Nazis in the weeks and months that followed as well.

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          2. No such thing as an Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon

            @Intractable Potsherd & Richard 126

            I clearly stated, as you (Intractable Potsherd) clearly quoted: "without the two world wars". <-- The important bit.

            Take a look at the situation the UK was in at the start of the 20th century. And then compare it to France and especially Germany. Then couple that with a banking system which makes the most profit from wars.

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        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          @No such thing as an Anonymous Coward

          your take on history is, well, how can i put it. utter horse shit?

          So without the two wars, we would have been financially crippled?

          thats an intresting take on history, much in the way the americans didnt kill the natives, they gave them tea and cakes an they did everything in the wars, an everything they did was perfect or so much harder than anything else on any front and THAT was why so many of them died.

          Quick history lesson, the reasons for both the wars started a long time before they really got down to it, History its self was a large driving force, you could go back decades reading about events which were essentially adding wood an petrol in an ever increasing pile, moral an treaty alliances all over the place an finally the spark that set the whole thing off. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, that pissed off quite a few people an set off a chain of events that eventually set fire to the massive bonfire that had built up in Europe. Now, you could argue that Britian was involved in this through its relentless hand slapping with the other big players in Europe, but intrestingly our main reason for getting involved was because of alliances.

          Now, that war COST britian its Empire, we were up to our eyes in debt an we didnt get much out of it in the end, but we still had it is name an potentially we could have kept some of it.

          The second war was just a continuation of the first, only this time we were more active in trying to stop it before it started,, we were apart of the reason it started again but only through association, we got bugger all out of the surrender on the first war, but Germany an co was raped for all it was worth by everyone else. Thus the world war part 2 started. That broke the back of the UK and we were never to be the same again. Once again we got bugger all out of it an it cost us everything.

          So your two points, firstly we were involved in starting the war. Not directly an no more than any other European country, your wrong.

          Secondly, you are saying we are better off WITH the wars, financially speak? im not sure how you came to that, We lost everything, the UK was ruined and got almost nothing in return, the rest of Europe picked over the remains of Germany after the first an second wars, France especially, an we got largely nothing except a pat on the back, Americans re writing history, lost an empire and was debt up to our eye balls!

          so i cant see you logic im afraid

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    5. Anonymous Coward 101
      Reply Icon

      Why stop at regions?

      Why not every town have it's own currency?

      But why stop there?

      Let every street have it's own currency!

      2 0
      1. PyLETS
        Reply Icon
        Happy

        @AC 101

        "Why not every town have it's own currency?

        But why stop there?

        Let every street have it's own currency!"

        I agree completely - my PyLETS web application software supports groups intending to do just that, a couple of which I am involved with, including one whose virtual IOUs issued 18 years ago are still spendable and circulating today and the other just in the process of starting up.

        But you won't yet be able to pay your taxes this way. Local taxes with a minor legislative change, in your city or town currency maybe, and why not if this helps fund the local authority and helps avoid wide area budget cutting/austerity regimes disconnecting local resources from local needs ?

        See also: http://copsewood.net/writings/kaytax.html

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    6. Jonathan Richards 1
      Reply Icon

      Aye Aye, @cap'n

      The pound in Bristol buys much more than the pound in London: that can't be fair. We want Bristol pounds! Wait, what? No, you can't have Bedminster pounds and Filton pounds, that's ridiculous... I know, we'll all collect small pieces of precious metal and use that as currency instead. Or I'll swap you a pig for a bit of web backend database tuning.

      I really hope that you were being deeply sarcastic.

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      1. borkbork
        Reply Icon
        Pirate

        the answer to your question is

        five tons of flax!

        1 0
        1. Danny 14
          Reply Icon
          Go

          mmm bacon

          ref the pig: sold! What DB you use and how big is the pig?

          mmm bacon.

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      2. Annihilator
        Reply Icon

        @Jonathan Richards

        cap'n clearly works for Travelex or something, and longs for the day of Filton pounds, Bedminster pounds and the fine Long Ashton Farthing. This way, he can reap the benefits of the now boom industry of currency exchange!

        Only question I've got, if it's the Euro going tits up, and we're so smart for not being involved in it, why the hell is it going to rain shit on us too? As it turns out, it seems to have made little difference whether we were in the Euro or not.

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    7. Colin Millar
      Reply Icon
      Flame

      QE is inevitable

      Just as the crash of the Euro (and the dollar) was inevitable.

      And it is not the banks you should be blaming but the politicians who built the system - all the banks did was operate the way they were encouraged to by successive generations of vote-buying politicians.

      QE by the ECB shouldn't have been necessary - according to the theory. All the Euro countries were going to live within the strict parameters set down and take early measures to address any breaches of those parameters - there were even penalties to be imposed to force compliance. However, economic management theories produced by crats and accountants never survive long in the real world.

      Unfortunately the whole show was being run by a bunch of people who were so tied to the Euro project being seen to succeed that they ignored all their own rules because they simply couldn't work - Greece (and almost certainly Ireland and Portugal) could never have complied with the original (or revised) rules for the Euro zone, Spain would always be borderline - a monkey with an abacus could have calculated that - the scaling made every day a toss of the coin for these small economies and their desperate need for growth gave them a vastly disproportionate exposure to bad debt.

      The parameters for action over inflation, indebtedness etc became fuzzy targets and those very clever people in Euopean finance ministries forgot that economic trending amongst a bunch of countries with lots in common would multiply the effect of breaching those parameters - like everyone rushing to starboard at the same time - and the small fry would always fall first - Greece could have been as prudent as you like for the last hundred years and it wouldn't have made any difference at all - they'd still be bust today.

      Being all smug about the pound isn't clever either - and all this talk about "european firewalls" and stopping the spread of contagion is childish nonsense designed to protect UK politicians butts. We are just as exposed as the rest of the Eurozone because the big debt is now on Europe and we don't have the ability (will?) to force our solution down everyone elses throats like the yanks do.

      The failure of Bretton Woods to agree a proper balancing mechanism was the fault of wussy Brit and French pols not standing up to Uncle Sam. For many decades the third world paid that price. Now we are having to suffer a bit of the pain ourselves and it is again wussy euro politicians who are going to see us come out of this with a "solution" which sows the seeds of the next disaster - i.e. WorldBanking 2.0 - "get your Chinese credit cards here".

      QE is going to happen when the europols realise that the IMF and World Bank will allow europe to do it just like it let the US do it. The UK should get the printing presses going right now. As for Greece, Italy, Spain and Ireland - let em bail. The last time the world tried to get blood out of a european stone we got nazis and WWII.

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  9. Matthew Smith

    Er, not quite

    The debt of GDP for Greece is 161% of GDP, so thats like someone on 10K a year owing 16K. So its bad, but not that bad. The problem is that also, their deficit is -8.5%, so even though they take home 10K, they have to spend 10.85K to survive. and nothing to spend on the debt when they want their annual interest paying.

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    1. Matt Siddall
      Reply Icon
      Headmaster

      <pedant>

      It's not feasible for the govt to take 100% of the GDP as taxes. Even after Labour's stealth taxes and the like, we're still only at about 50% here, and the Greeks are well known for under-collecting.

      But even if the Greek govt could collect 50% of the GDP as tax, then it would be like someone with an income of £10k owing £32k.

      According to http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/48/27/41498733.pdf the 2006 %age of GDP taken as tax revenue was 31.3 (2006 is the latest I could see, but I didn't look that hard). at 31.3%, it's the equivalent of someone earning £10k who owes £51.44k. So the original statement was actually pretty close...

      </pedant>

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  10. Scott Broukell
    Megaphone

    Fed up ......

    ..... with gubermints and banks telling us that we should be so careful to manage our personal finances and them then being complete arseholes with their state spending / borrowing.

    During the years of the last "Prudent" labour administration I was bombarded, daily, with offers of releasing equity, having more credit cards or getting cheap loans to tempt me to become more like my peers and have a second car, a fourth annual skiing holiday and another wide-screen plasma in the kitchen. It's all shit and bollocks and the little people always end up paying for it with jobs and income and stress.

    Banks and financial institutions drove the more recent expansion of Europe because they wanted to reach a wider customer base for lending euros out and trading in misery. That's what precipitated the latest pile of streaming effluent.

    Remember that both Germany and France (and UK, I think?) allowed themselves to break the sacred government borrowing rules for Europe - so that set a fine example to countries like Greece.

    I cringed every time I heard Gordon Brown say "the value of your property keeps rising under Labour" - to me that's not good news, that's dire news for the younger generations trying to rent / buy somewhere - it's just plain greed and avarice.

    There are other ways to do retail banking, with mutuals and providential societies, oh, but they all demutualized under the Conservative "Loads a money" dream of profits, profits, profits. OK, the growth isn't stupendous, but imho I prefer a steady growth concept anyway.

    So completely (YES COMPLETELY!) separate retail from investment banking so Mr & Mrs Smiths savings don't get clobbered and increase the banks capitalisation to at least 140% and if that makes the job of traders and investors harder, then perhaps we won't mind them getting some remuneration / bonus for their hard work (sorry gambling skills).

    Imho we need far more, smaller, mutual banks and far more co-operative businesses, along with government prudence (actual prudence this time) and a drive for steady long-term policy making, but I don't suppose we will see things change cos the banks and financial institutions have got all our cash (got a firm grip on our nads) and refuse to lend any out to help start-ups etc.

    Europe is built inside-out anyway imho. Instead of having a huge hub in the middle, awash with funding and wotnot, it should have hubs in each country keeping a finger on the pulse of businesses and the local economies, which feed that data back to a smaller central hub where experts make analysis and adjustments accordingly. It's called feed-back rather than monopoly.

    And, most importantly, independant and transparent oversight!

    <rant over> thanks I needed that. Of to the pub now, I've got just enough for half a pint of mild and a packet of cheese and onion. Oh! the memories / realities.

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