Quote:
Originally Posted by thommy
nobody put a gun to anyones head. we still have a lot of countries with their own currency. but the euro makes things much easier and the countries that have the euro prefer to buy from those that also have the euro because it is more calculable.
and why do you think that germany productivity is higher than in other countries?
german is a country with very high wages and social costs. to produce in Germany is nearly that high as in france. If you have ever been in France you would know why.
France is a 110% welfare country - I would nearly say a socialist country with far too much power at the labor unions with far too much power at the labor unions and an uncomfortable legacy from the colonial era.
so the real question is where france would be today without the euro and the european union.
I think the problem is that people are expecting too much and donīt want to give a shit to make things better. on top of that the EU can not resolve problems that were already existing before. many of this problems have been hidden til the day when it was necessary to put the clean books on the table.
this long existing truth was then simply attributed to the EU and the oil was poured into the fire of the populists.
this is the really sad part but you can not explain that to dumb people who do not understand how economy and economic tricks are working.
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German workers are expensive, but they would have ended up even more expensive if you'd kept the DM, you couldn't keep upping prices on exportable goods to cover the currency growth.
By switching to the euro you stabilised your manufacturing cost.
Hourly labour cost is similar in France and Germany, but you are more efficient.
France can drop costs by taking an axe to parts of it's welfare state, but there is no way that is going to happen, he backed down after 4 weeks of protests, the French people know he will never pass a difficult law again, but if he does they will rightly or wrongly blame the EU on the cuts.