Quote:
Originally Posted by sperbonzo
One currency? Hell, I don't see the Euro lasting more than 10 more years, max.
It just won't work. In order for a country to keep problems with their economy in check, they need to be able to devalue their currency in order to make their exports cheaper. Look at what is happening to Greece and Portugal. I personally predict that Germany will pull out of the EMU within 6 years.
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A devaluation is only a trick. By devaluing your own currency, you are basically just shoving the shit elsewhere, onto another country or region. Many countries in Europe have a long and dreaded history of devaluing their own currency, riding the inflation wave a few years and then devalue again.
This was a large reason to create the Euro in the first place, to avoid unfair competition among the Euro countries. Productivity within the EU zone is very different, from highly specialized and developed Germany and Sweden for example, to low productivity and miserable Spain, Portugal and Greece. The, usually southern, EU countries lagging behind will need to increase productivity, quality of work and try to keep up with their much richer brothers in the north. What has happened has been that they have tried to maintain the same lifestyle and spending level in those low productivity countries as the richer, more productive northern countries, which also have a lot lower level of corruption.
The Euro is a good idea, of bringing a continent, with a history full of wars, closer together. Instead of fighting Europe now trades. But people, like the Greece, don't like to hear that they are slow, under-educated and low performing, they feel that since "they are equal Europeans" they also have the right to a certain standard of life, which they, in all honesty, can not afford. We will see many more of these fights over money and economics, but in the end the Euro will stay and the non-conforming countries will need to step it up, do the reforms and start keeping a budget diciplin.
Too much is at stake, Europe has closed the gap and come toghether before and will do so again. This is a major bump in the road, sure, the car jumped high, but it's still on the road, continuing it's way forward.