Good, we Americans don't need a united Europe to compete with. You're just fine broken up and deconstructed. There was too much potential for you guys to become an answer to China and the Chinese model with better living standards, more humane individuality and a sensible environmental policy. Now you will go back to squabbling and the occasional war just like you always have with the Swiss sitting in the middle armed to the teeth and gloating. Enter Chris.
REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Monday, November 22, 2010 2:11 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION Subject: [Futurework] The beginning of the end of the Euro It looks to me as though the European Monetary Union (EMU) is at the beginning of its death throes now. When the EU President, Herman Van Rompuy, said last week that the European Union was in a "survival crisis" even he was expecting the IMF team to have finished its inspection of Ireland's accounts on Tuesday morning last as expected. But it dragged on all through last week and over the week-end, and still the details haven't emerged. Rumours have it, though, that the IMF and EU teams haven't been able to force Ireland into giving up its highly preferential 12.5% corporate tax rate (with which it has been able to attract several large American corporations). They haven't been able to for the simple political fact that Irish people are almost up in arms about the whole mess that membership of the EU has led them into. The opposition party will sweep into power early next year in Ireland's General Election and might then decide -- even if the 12.5% rate is retained -- that Ireland should default from its debts altogether, Latin American style, and thus leave the EMU, with resignation from the EU likely to follow . Only this would give Ireland a sporting chance of re-establishing itself as a going concern. Almost anything could happen then. Portugal, the next on the chopping block, could follow suit and then likely to be followed by Greece -- once again! -- which, despite its recent bail-out, is nowhere near on target in meeting EMU objectives -- and then there's Spain and Italy, also, both in irredeemable financial trouble. And then there's Germany. It, too, could secede from the EMU. Germany, with its superb engineering exports, would be well able to manage on its own. There are only two issues which have held Germany on a knife edge from seceding from the EMU already in the past year. One is that it is still suffering from the guilt of WWII, particularly of the Holocaust, and feels it must act towards Europe in a super-responsible way in order to expatiate itself. The other is that, with a weak Euro currency, its exports are prospering. With a new Deutschesmark, bond investors would soon mark it up and thus knock Germany's exports back somewhat -- at least initially. It wouldn't be able to maintain its present low level of unemployment (relative to the rest of the Western world). It's in the lap of the Gods -- that is, bond investors -- as to whether the EMU and the EU survives or not in the next few months. Politicians don't have to be brave to try and keep the show alive, but bond investors, who have to put their money where their mouth is, would certainly have to be. And if the IMF succeeds in bailing-out the EMU for the time being (that is, putting on a convincing show with large emotive financial numbers), just where is its money coming from? Because many of its main funding nations are themselves in debt, then any "money" from the IMF can only be yet another form of money printing. Keith Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
