Desperate fight to save the euro

Desperate fight to save the euro

www.independent.co.uk

The euro plunged further into crisis yesterday as investors sold off Spanish, Portuguese and Belgian government bonds in record numbers on renewed fears that those nations would follow Greece and Ireland into the financial emergency ward, undermining confidence in the single currency.

(visit the link for the full news article)

The Euro is in some serious trouble.

So what is the alternative? If countries could simply revert back to their own currency, backed by commodities such as gold or silver, all of this would be averted.

But while they are scrabbling to keep the Euro alive countries will not be allowed to do this. Recently Iceland saved itself by devaluing its currency by 80%. Because of this, it's now in a much better position than Ireland, who is looking at more cuts.

The banks create the problem, the people bail them out, the people pay for their mess.

With Spain going the same way, can the Euro continue to function? how disruptive would it be for all Euro countries to return to their own currencies, and do they still have the gold available to back it up?

www.independent.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

The EU is bound to fail, super nations just dont work and proof of this is the reluctence of UK to give aid (although they have now to Ireland), therefore i conclude that the EU should be abolished before before it collapses

I still lean on the side that this has been orchestrated to create a more powerful union with each failing state that is bailed out ceding more power to the union to survive. Once the central bank controls budgets and economies the remaining power from those nations will follow

reply to post by thoughtsfull


I agree that there is an agenda at hand but Spain will soon follow Ireland/Portugal and the IMF and the E.U do not have enough money to bail out Madrid. And when Spain falls, Italy will follow, and so on.

Yeah i agree too. I always thought that the Euro and EU was one step towards one world government and one world currency. First the EU superpower, then the NA coalition with the Amero, then Asia, Africa.

But this may well have a severe domino effect if more and more nations start to suffer the same fate and the end of the EU is a serious blow to those plans.

Is it all just a ploy to create mass civil unrest? Riots? To see how far the people can be pushed before they snap?

This seems to be working in hot blooded countries such as Greece and France. However, here in the ever apathetic UK we are serial armchair complainers and always talk about how terrible things are while letting ourselves get shafted at the same time.

So is it time for civil unrest? Or is that just all part of the plan?

reply to post by Nammu


This is a genuine question as my understanding of economics is woeful.
Would any of these countries actually be in a better position if they didn't have the Euro? After all isn't this problem global and effecting the dollar to and more or less every currency?
Wouldn't Greece for example be in just as much trouble if the still had Drachmas?

reply to post by FermiFlux


I guess I see things in quite a simple helicopter view.. that we (as in globally) are on a fork in the road.. either we'll end up going down the route of internal dissent that'll tear the global village apart or down the route of external conflict to redirect our angst/attention elsewhere.

While in my opinion the route of internal dissent puts the establishments head in the noose, which is something I seriously don't think the elite can allow since that puts them directly at risk. Which is why I see any external conflict happening before the internal dissent (in the West) get to the point of toppling anyone single nation.

Separating the EU out of that, I feel the process the EU seems to going through to be one of consolidating power via the bank bailouts.. but as you say that only has a limited life span.. so once bailout funds are exhausted, it does feel the next step would be leveraging an external conflict to continue consolidating power into the pockets of the few.

For me that would be like seeing the rise in Europe as a new Roman Empire focused around the EU set up..

reply to post by Nammu


Once spain needs a bailout, it will all be over. Spain will consume anything left they have available for bailouts, dooming the entire eurozone. Maybe buying gold is a good idea...

reply to post by Nammu


I don't think riots benefit the establishment as it rocks their boats.. although such a reaction has at times given them more power over us, mostly it has had the opposite effect.

Using the coalitions attempt to not recreate the 1830s by trying to have their Great Reform Bill enacted before we get too cheesed off with them, it is tho worth looking at what happening during those years to see how unstoppable those types of events can become.

1830s version
en.wikipedia.org...
2010 version
www.number10.gov.uk...

If you follow a path from the Luddites (in the North) to the Swing Riots (in the South) suddenly the Tolpuddle martyrs, unions and such become an extension of the changes society was undergoing, and the great reforms the elite tried to put in place the only path left open to them.

Once we as a society start down that route it will become unstoppable for the elite. Hence why I feel the elite will get us into something external prior to that contagion taking hold.

As far as the UK involvement with the EU bailout of Ireland goes, George Osbourne has said that the UK is only involved for two reasons. First is that they cant get out of it because they are obligated by agreements and so on to do so, and second is that Ireland is a friend in need, and that to refuse to help would be unnecessarily unhelpful . Reading between the lines, the UK government has put itself in such a weak position within Europe, that it cannot decide the fate of its tax money, and is so worried about the threat of Irish terror groups reforming to survive the ecconomic winter in Ireland should the whole countries financial system collapse, that they are prepared to make massive allowances toward Ireland to avoid carnage.
Now, what I find incredibly interesting about all this is George Osbournes stance on the causes of the Irish banking collapse. He has said that weak regulatory systems, and a general lack of control on the part of the Irish government are contributing factors to the trouble that the Irish finanical system is having at this time. However, when asked about the ecconomic difficulties which hung over the UK , he said that the best way to fix the issue would be to reduce the ammount of regulation so that the banks could get on with the job ! He cannot have it both ways, and yet, he appears to both have his cake , and eat it (probably infront of some half starved street children, knowing the sort of disgusting finance fascist he is).
If he does finaly accept that the cause of our financial issues here in the UK was bad banking practice, then he must accept surely that the correct way to deal with it would not be to tax and cut till the people bleed , but to force the BANKS to correct thier mistakes AND make reparations for the damage to the livelihoods of some of Britains most vunerable, and in some cases , most hardworking people.

The Euro was ment to be one size fits all world currency from my understanding. I did not think that would work to start with. Currency changes so much from place to place a one size fits all idea was a joke to start with if you ask me. A world currency just is not going to work. Maybe one day a long time from now but not now. Ijuat do not see how the Euro can last.

Originally posted by davespanners
reply to post by Nammu

 

This is a genuine question as my understanding of economics is woeful.
Would any of these countries actually be in a better position if they didn't have the Euro? After all isn't this problem global and effecting the dollar to and more or less every currency?
Wouldn't Greece for example be in just as much trouble if the still had Drachmas?

I'm not an economist myself, so i'll try and answer as best i can with my understanding.If anyone wants to correct or elaborate on anything here, please go ahead. I've never been into economics so this is all guess work.

The thing about having your own currency is that it's yours. It's backed by 'real' commodities such as gold and silver. With the Euro, there's multiple countries using the one currency. It's made strong by the number of nations using it and the amount of trade done in Euros between those nations.

We all know the recent problems Iceland had. Well to solve this they devalued their currency. This means that you get more krona for your dollar, so it becomes very cheap to buy anything produced there, and to visit there. So tourism booms, trade booms, and they get lifted out of the depression. It's worked for them so far.

This can never happen with the Euro. They can't deavlue it or it will hit every EU nation currently using it. So that's why they are asking other nations, ones that are themselves struggling, to chip in money to try to pull the failing nations up. So rather than let their economies pick themselves up through increased trade, they are being propped up by an injection of cash.

This seems like a failed system to me. It takes cuts, loans (which means interest on loans) and higher taxes to fix. The people pay for it. The only ones to benefit from this are the banks.

In fact that's it. There's the reasoning right there. Higher interest on billions loaned from country to country trying to prop up a currency because devaluing it would be disasterous. The banks are laughing all the way to the.....well, bank.

reply to post by Nammu


Thanks for taking the time to explain that, it sounds right at least

How does the situation work with the UK though as we are in the EU but do not use the currency, what would devaluing the pound do to the rest of the EU?

I see your in Glasgow! is it snowing there at the moment? I just dropped my girlfriend at the airport as she's off to Edinburgh to see he mum, hope the flight doesn't get delayed because of a few inches of snow!

reply to post by davespanners


For the UK, we're in a bit if a funny position. We're in the EU, so the strength of the Euro is in our best interests, but we have our own currency to worry about as well. If we were to devalue the pound, it would definitely affect the Euro too because we're a member nation. That's why the EU is such a silly idea. If one nation goes down it adversely affects everyone.

At least our currency is still backed by some gold, but Gordon Brown did stupidly sell more than half of that off when gold was at a low price while he was Chancellor. He lost us over £2 billion and this puts the pound at risk. I think this was a deliberate ploy to make our country more reliant on the EU and the strength of the Euro. If we wouldn't join the single currency, then they'd damn well make sure we were at least reliant on it. That's why we are forced to help bail out Ireland even though there's an EU fund set up for that sort of thing.

No snow in Glasgow yesterday, but we're forcast for some later today in both Glasgow and Edinburgh.

reply to post by thoughtsfull


Failure by design is also my theory


Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws. Mater Amschel Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty.

These people have more money than we all could ever imagine exists.

They totally run the stock market fixing share prices, and all that. I am not sure what they are doing, but i am sure its meant to be this way.

It was the only way to get irelands soverinty, so who can say it was not done on purpose.

Originally posted by thoughtsfull
I still lean on the side that this has been orchestrated to create a more powerful union with each failing state that is bailed out ceding more power to the union to survive. Once the central bank controls budgets and economies the remaining power from those nations will follow

Although that possibility cannot be ruled out, to me it feels that this is a deliberate US-orchestrated campaign to distract attention from their own financial woes. Ironically enough, their problems are way worse than those of for instance Portugal. It seems to involve the Anglo-Saxon mainstream media, hedge-fund and the Fed.

They hyped the Greek crisis enormously too (considering that their economy only accounts for 2% of the EU-zone economy) and I have especially paid attention to the way of reporting. The superlatives and sensationalized style used for reporting on EU financial problems is incomparable to the very dry style used to report US financial problems.

reply to post by andy1033

It was the only way to get irelands soverinty, so who can say it was not done on purpose.

Good point. The held a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and initially rejected it. I was alway sceptical about the change in voting in Ireland the second time around. The whole campaign for the second referendum was based on the economic uncertainty. Was Ireland ruined to get them to sign the treaty? Interesting.

reply to post by Nammu


Ireland and greece where probably the two most nationalistic countries in europe, but now look at them.

They where first to fall.

Just leads me to beleive they where bothe set up to do that.