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View Full Version : Time Running out for Germany and the EU



Conley
11-13-2011, 09:40 AM
Looming over all the discussions of reform and financing mechanisms is the slowdown in the Continent’s already anemic growth rate, to 0.5 percent in 2012, and even the threat of a double-dip recession, the European Commission said in a forecast for the euro zone last week.

That calls into doubt the adequacy of the euro zone’s latest attempt to placate the markets, the lagging effort to bolster the $605 billion European Financial Stability Facility to $1.4 trillion or to find other funding. The task will become that much harder in a recessionary environment, especially as France’s credibility with investors begins to decline.

When Germany’s council of independent economic advisers proposed to Chancellor Angela Merkel last week a way to share European debt to protect Italy and Spain, she dismissed the idea as impossible without changes to European Union treaties. She has also opposed any expansion in the European Central Bank’s role in buying up the bonds of the indebted countries, which could hold down interest rates on their debts, let alone allowing the bank to guarantee Italian debt.

But critics say there is no time for the treaty changes Mrs. Merkel is talking about; those could take years to put in place.


The vulnerability of Italy — the third-largest economy in the euro zone and the fourth-largest debtor nation in the world — brought the crisis into the core of the euro zone. For all the speculation over weaker countries eventually choosing to leave the euro, there is really no euro without Italy, certainly not a euro that can be considered a common European currency.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/world/europe/for-european-union-and-the-euro-a-moment-of-truth.html?_r=1&hp

France's bonds were downgraded at the end of last week, the dominoes are beginning to fall now.

Conley
11-13-2011, 09:41 AM
Actually S&P claimed the downgrade was a mistake --

"The mistake was quickly corrected and the French, enraged, opened a formal investigation. The episode showed how little margin for error remained even for France, which is already suffering from a drop in industrial production and has watched the gap between its bonds’ rates and those of Germany widen to record levels, an ominous development in this environment."

Weird stuff going on, but no one has confidence in France.

Peter1469
11-13-2011, 09:52 AM
It is only a matter of time before the Eurozone collapses.

Mister D
11-13-2011, 04:17 PM
It is only a matter of time before the Eurozone collapses.


I support European unity but not a union centered on a common market.

Peter1469
11-13-2011, 05:27 PM
They would be better off with a real union than just a fiscal union.

Mister D
11-13-2011, 05:55 PM
They would be better off with a real union than just a fiscal union.


Agreed. I've only recently come to accept the appropriateness of a federalist system for Europe.

Peter1469
11-13-2011, 07:08 PM
With that said, I am not sure if the Europeans are ready for it.

Mister D
11-13-2011, 07:23 PM
With that said, I am not sure if the Europeans are ready for it.


The current system doesn't make enough room for regional autonomy and appears to have no interest in maintaining a European Europe. I'd go as far as to say that it's an Americanized system advocating deculturation, homogenization and the supremacy of market values (that is, a leveling off of everything that makes the various European cultures what they are). It's the McWorld of the multinationals that some Europeans resent and I certainly don't blame them.

Conley
11-13-2011, 07:25 PM
With that said, I am not sure if the Europeans are ready for it.


The current system doesn't make enough room for regional autonomy and appears to have no interest in maintaining a European Europe. I'd go as far as to say that it's an Americanized system advocating deculturation, homogenization and the supremacy of market values (that is, a leveling off of everything that makes the various European cultures what they are). It's the McWorld of the multinationals that some Europeans resent and I certainly don't blame them.


You nailed it. Plus after this horrific failure of the EU no one is going to want to join any kind of union IMO. It's been an epic cluster.

Mister D
11-13-2011, 07:51 PM
With that said, I am not sure if the Europeans are ready for it.


The current system doesn't make enough room for regional autonomy and appears to have no interest in maintaining a European Europe. I'd go as far as to say that it's an Americanized system advocating deculturation, homogenization and the supremacy of market values (that is, a leveling off of everything that makes the various European cultures what they are). It's the McWorld of the multinationals that some Europeans resent and I certainly don't blame them.


You nailed it. Plus after this horrific failure of the EU no one is going to want to join any kind of union IMO. It's been an epic cluster.


I think in time people will come around to see it's benefits but in the short term disgust with the old E.U. will probably be too strong.

Conley
11-13-2011, 07:54 PM
With that said, I am not sure if the Europeans are ready for it.


The current system doesn't make enough room for regional autonomy and appears to have no interest in maintaining a European Europe. I'd go as far as to say that it's an Americanized system advocating deculturation, homogenization and the supremacy of market values (that is, a leveling off of everything that makes the various European cultures what they are). It's the McWorld of the multinationals that some Europeans resent and I certainly don't blame them.


You nailed it. Plus after this horrific failure of the EU no one is going to want to join any kind of union IMO. It's been an epic cluster.


I think in time people will come around to see it's benefits but in the short term disgust with the old E.U. will probably be too strong.


You may be right. In my mind the resentment will last at least a couple of generations. It might not be fair but I think the 'man in the street' will blame Greece and to a lesser but still significant extent Italy. Ireland, Spain and other countries will get a relative pass. Then again I am looking at it from an English/French/German angle. I'm also buzzed. 8)

MMC
11-14-2011, 07:01 AM
Well this morning Merkel came out stating she was for keeping the Union the way it is now. With what Countries are alreay part of and working together to confront this fiscal crisis.

Peter1469
11-14-2011, 05:54 PM
Yet the Germans will not agree to monitorizing the debt of the PIIGS. That means that the Eurozone must fail.