Barney Gumble wrote:
The problem with a lot of this commentary is that you don't know whether people are making arguments motivated by genuine concern about the future of the Euro, or whether they are anti-European zealots who want to undermine confidence in the system for ideological reasons. It would be a useful to know where those making these arguments are starting from so you are on alert for ideological bias one way or the other.
I was thinking something similar myself.....
Seems to me that lately a lot of this is directed at Germany.
As though the Euro was a net around them with the peripheral countries acting as weights on the net.
Looked at this way, the more Germany struggles the more it gets knotted up.
Of course Germany is
refusing to struggle and is still live and dangerous under the net.
Thus, for enemies of Germany, the alternative is to poke the weights around the periphery and hope that they move and tie Germany down.
So far this too has failed.
Now the problem is that Germany has many enemies (economically speaking) Britain and the US on the one hand and China on the other.
Allowing Germany to consolidate its power in Europe would be a real threat in the medium term to all of these players.
Imagine all the nations of the EU developing along the German model...... a greater Germany, if you will.
The UK and US are little more than corporate shells, but France and Germany have resisted this model.
Any foreign (external) 'help' should be viewed with great suspicion, particularly from the Chinese or US.
I suspect that neither actually want the situation resolved beyond preserving their markets.
Indeed I suspect that US/Chinese own currency hi-jinks may be designed to keep the Euro destabilised.
If you take this view, we're watching an economic war unfold.
