The Euro: Dead

[MrGongGong]

Cheese and Beer ?
Without EU protection we would less variety and many would die out
we tried that in the UK (Watneys REd Barrel ?) its not what people value !
The irony is that EU convergence has ensured greater diversity (in food) than would have been the case left to the markets
if that's important to you (which it is to the people who want to keep eating Cantal cheese and Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb) then there's a lot to be said for "centralised" organisation ..........

[scottycelt]

Wonderful ... let we Europeans simply revert back to squabbling and killing one another and then the USA will have less control over our affairs ... certainly a novel idea.

[scottycelt]

Cheese and Beer ?
Without EU protection we would less variety and many would die out
we tried that in the UK (Watneys REd Barrel ?)

Oh come on, Mr GG, it had to contend with stiff competition from Double Diamond ...

[John Skelton]

So you are saying a potential superpower such as an United Europe would be more beholden to the US than a bunch of divided, squabbling independent countries? Well, I've come across many Eurosceptic 'arguments' but that just about takes the biscuit!

All the countries in the EU are democracies and the national governments will eventually have to ensure mandates from 'the people' when their term is up or before. That is a condition of membership of the EU ... didn't you know?

You have told us what you are against. Can you now tell us, in the absence of European economic and political unity, what your own solution would be to the present crisis, over and above verbally stringing-up 'technocrats, bankers and financiers'?

No I can't tell you what "my" solution to the "present crisis" would be. If you think about it it's a rather silly thing to ask on a message board. But then I don't know what you think the "solution" is. I do get an odd sense you think it goes rather like this: countries have borrowed money and have to find a way to pay it back. But it's vastly more complicated than that. To look at it like that ignores the whole issue of "surplus liquidity", the whole issue of the explosion and implosion of the financial sector, and rather gives the impression that a load of Greeks woke up one morning and decided to pop down the bank and ask for a loan to redecorate the apartment in the style of the Parthenon; and when that's done we'll have a new flat screen TV and a motor.

I am not a Eurosceptic. I speak two European languages well and can have a decent attempt at two others. I've lived (in my early twenties) in France and much later for some years in an Eastern European country. "Beholden"? Can you see a common European 'defence' policy operating against US interest in Nato? Mandates from their own people? Just how expressed? We already have two countries with technocrats who have assumed office. There isn't exactly a tradition in our democracies of bothering what people think about war. Or austerity. Why would that be different in the context of European political union?

Meanwhile: this is what austerity looks like http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/this...ity-looks-like

[Chris Newman]

When I hear Cameron slip the knife into Europe as he often does I feel ashamed and disgusted. We should have been there at the heart of it (except that Thatcher woman began the campaign for us becoming selfish grabbers: she and Cameron expect something for nothing in return) and now we squat on the beach lamenting that any effluence floating past is someone else's fault. Europe should have had the muscle to pull itself out of the sewer that America, Russia, China and the rest are creating. Our selfishness has created a two-tier europe (the small e is deliberate). We are now minor fools along with Italy, Poland and other extreme right-wing nations. I hope that sensible folk will see that by equating Thatcher and Cameron I am talking about a wide part of modern history. Blair and Brown just continued defecating on the European beach.

[John Skelton]

Chris - that's all very fine, and I don't in any way disagree about Thatcher and Cameron. But what do you want 'us' to be "at the heart of"? Why do you think Europrean economies and the EU aren't helping to create the sewer? In what sense is the project of European political and fiscal / economic union not right-wing? Are the economics behind it not right-wing? Are its political solutions not right-wing? And now Italy and Poland are "minor fools".

In what sense are the economics behind European fiscal / monetary union not those of "selfish grabbers"? Who are the losers? The big European banks (in the non-minor fool nations)? Or ordinary Greek people? Or ordinary people throughout Europe? What did they do wrong? Fail to balance their household budgets? Fail to understand that all that surplus liquidity coming their way wasn't as good a thing as all the EU and IMF experts knew it was? Failed to grasp that individually?

I may have missed it, but all I see are assertions that something called Europe (which now seems to be the same thing as the neo-liberal economic and the a-democratic project of unification of currency, budgets, and institutions: how did thst happen?) is wonderful and "we" are disgraced by not being properly 'in' it (no detail about what that might mean). Nothing about the austerity 'rescue' plans. Nothing about their efficacy or motivation. Just - it's a Good Thing and Mr GG talking about cheese and beer.

[teamsaint]

I agree absolutely with John.

What surprises me is how a lot of people who are normally wary of big government and powerful interest groups are happy to ditch that scepticism when it comes to Europe.

[scottycelt]

No I can't tell you what "my" solution to the "present crisis" would be. If you think about it it's a rather silly thing to ask on a message board. But then I don't know what you think the "solution" is. I do get an odd sense you think it goes rather like this: countries have borrowed money and have to find a way to pay it back. But it's vastly more complicated than that. ... I am not a Eurosceptic. I speak two European languages well and can have a decent attempt at two others. I've lived (in my early twenties) in France and much later for some years in an Eastern European country.

Would it have been less silly to ask you the question by private e-mail, maybe ...?

Of course I never really expected an answer and, in fairness, it might have been more appropriate to ask you what might be your alternative solution (if there is indeed one) to Europe avoiding another similar crisis in the future.

The stock answer of many opposed to further European union is that they are every bit as European (sometimes even more so) than those who favour it. I do not doubt that for one moment! I also did not suggest that you were 'anti-European' but you have openly declared that you are extremely 'sceptical' (to say the least!) of further political and economic integration. Whilst I'm not a great one for pinning convenient labels on individuals myself, I would have thought you might readily agree you could be accurately described as an 'Eurosceptic'?

Appart from the dire financial situation in Greece, the current crisis is largely one of confidence (or lack of it) by the markets. Unless you are advocating that Europe suddenly makes moves towards a Stalinist-style command economy that is is simply a fact of life. I have always at least agreed with the Eurosceptic who insists the only way a common currency can work is through fiscal (and inevitably) political union among the countries concerned. The only difference really is that he/she is then not prepared to change the status quo whilst those in favour are convinced that this change is the only viable option for Europe, including the UK.

I am quite well aware of the meaning of the word 'austerity', though I do think it has been over-used in the current situation. My own idea of what it means is a bit like post-war UK with its rationing. I do think special measures will have to be found to ease the plight of Greece, however unfair that may be to countries like Ireland which has already taken some of the necessary medicine in order to return to economic health... it wasn't particularly the 'fault' of the people of that country either! As the old saying goes .. 'we wouldn't have started from here, but we are where we are ...'

Whether we like it or not, the world is forming into large trading blocs in order that the individual countries feel that they have some protection. In fact, it could well be argued that things have now already gone even further with the now mutual economic dependence of the current superpowers, the USA and China.

Some form of world government, never mind European, may not be so far off!

[John Skelton]

Some form of world government, never mind European, may not be so far off!

I'm sure it isn't. In its minor forms it already looks something like this http://phdoctopus.com/2011/11/15/obs...y-wall-street/

A world government implementing austerity taking the form of something like post-war UK rationing? Given that we'd have a world government and a world financial market that's inconceivable. The imperative will be the generation of surplus value and the enrichment of the few, as it always is. As it must be, logically, within the system. What is conceivable is the future consolidation of financial services capitalism, with the inevitable attendant smash that no one in the world government will have seen coming, the frantic development of new markets until those are exhausted, the further exploitation of natural resources - ditto, and the abandonment of some economies and populations as marginal or failed (already happening). Of course, in some way those economies if not most of those populations (except as quasi-criminal subject peoples) will need to be kept in the system. Bonanza time for the world government's security forces!

In whose interests is this world government going to govern?

Yes it's a matter of 'confidence'. The people who create the crisis profit from it (look at interest payment levels). Apparently the solution to this crisis is to create the conditions for a further crisis which will require creating the conditions for a further crisis in order to solve it.

[scottycelt]

I'm sure it isn't. In its minor forms it already looks something like this http://phdoctopus.com/2011/11/15/obs...y-wall-street/

In whose interests is this world government going to govern?

Yes it's a matter of 'confidence'. The people who create the crisis profit from it (look at interest payment levels). Apparently the solution to this crisis is to create the conditions for a further crisis which will require creating the conditions for a further crisis in order to solve it.

You appear to be more interested in the (for you) dream-like scenario of the overthrow of the world capitalist system than the merits or otherwise of ongoing European integration.

Those who lend to the riskier borrowers at higher rates don't always profit ... sometimes they lose all their money!

Capitalism has many faults ... the obscene rewards of those at the top and virtually nothing for those at the bottom are glaring examples ... but for the great majority of those in between the European 'mixed' form has produced a standard of living and relative stability unknown to previous generations, It can hardly be described as 'laissez-faire' as might still be the case (to an extent) in the USA.

I am forced to ask you another very silly question. What sort of financial and political system(s) do you envisage might realistically and more successfully replace those Europe has at present, and is currently poised to consolidate in the future?

[John Skelton]

I don't have visionary powers, scotty - and even if I did I don't think there would be space on the message board to answer such an enormous question. I don't believe - as I think you do - that there aren't alternatives to the current reality, or that they are dream-like. Surely there's something dream-like about the idea of steadily increasing accumulation and profit, without limit, without end? In a sense those at the top are irrelevant. It's the system, not the individuals.

That's true about standard of living. But, of course, the last thirty years have seen wage suppression against huge increases in profit and the value of assets. We are now beyond the stage where there are signs of the standard of living argument unravelling, we are into the thing itself, and I don't agree that austerity is an over-used word in the context of the (continuing) crisis. Actually, I don't think it captures the reality of what is happening. The Lancet has a recent paper showing extraordinary health consequences manifest already in Greece: suicide rates up, HIV infection rates up (increased prostitution, the collapse of state funded programmes). And the inevitable increase in psychiatric illness (and the closure of psychiatric hospitals).

In a sense we can have a conversation, but we can't (not in any way meant hostilely) because you think the system can be fixed and I don't. Or, I don't think it can be fixed in such a way that human suffering won't continue to increase and further fixes won't be needed. What will happen, though, I have no way of knowing. Or whether the overthrow of the capitalist system (as you put it) is possible. The odds are perhaps that it's not: or that environmental catastrophe will render everything irrelevant. But I don't see the Euro-capitalist project as an answer for people in Europe, and you do. So we'll just have to differ .

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

this has an air of irresistible logic to it ....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

as does this a very cold logic at work here but telling as he sees it

[aeolium]

this has an air of irresistible logic to it ....

Yes, Calum, but I would like him (or someone) to take the point further and examine what the probable consequences of taking that action would be - I mean not just for companies but for individuals and societies. I think the presence of all these insurance hedges and credit default swaps means that it is not as simple as it appears, that there may be a lot of difficult-to-foresee consequences.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i think that is true in all directions of choice aeolium