What really caused the eurozone crisis?

Re:What really caused the eurozone crisis? by marquis on Thursday December 22, 2011 @10:48AM (#3381862)

In regards to 'wages rose and rose in Spain' and are now not competitive with Germany: I would have thought that wages in Spain pre-1997 were very low compared to Germany, so if they rose it was to become comparable. How does this then make Spain less competitive with Germany? (I may be completely wrong and am neither an economist nor aware of what the wage gap is/was between eurozones).

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Re:What really caused the eurozone crisis? by Maro on Thursday December 22, 2011 @11:03AM (#3381923)

The infographic says regarding Spain and Italy: "Their exports are uncompetitive".

Maybe the thinking is that stuff exported by Spain and Italy is on average crappier than stuff exported by Germany, so it should cost less to manufacture, ie. lower wages?

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Re:What really caused the eurozone crisis? by jc79 on Thursday December 22, 2011 @12:59PM (#3382533)

I can tell that the minimum wage in Portugal is around 485 Euros (and there is a very significant portion of the population earning just that), so it's not fair to say the wages are 'even' with Germany.

It is really a matter of what you invest on and export: and with few exceptions, the choices made here were not brilliant...

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Re:What really caused the eurozone crisis? by Maro on Thursday December 22, 2011 @01:34PM (#3382653)

Here in Hungary it's around €300.

Btw. there's a Google feature for this:

http://tinyurl.com/7xlfah2

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Re:What really caused the eurozone crisis? by fcatalan on Friday December 23, 2011 @01:41AM (#3384937)

And they are far from comparable right now, after "rising and rising". Tell me how these are not competitive: http://www.payscale.com/research/ES/Country=Spain/Salary http://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Country=Germany/Salary

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