Re:Behind Germany’s refusal to grant Greece debt relief
by igravious on Saturday July 11, 2015 @09:35PM
(#9872274)
When these concerns were brought up initially I didn't heed them. I was blinded by the warm-fuzzies and the spirit of solidarity, I'll admit it! This is an issue I've had to totally change my thinking about. The UK were really smart on this one, as were the Danes and the Swedes. It's not too late to make things better but it's a huge ship to turn around and these things have a way of systemically operating according to their own logic eventually and resisting control. The only saving grace of the EUR is that other places in the world have their own special problems but that's no consolation and only a pig (sorry pigs!) would think like that.
These were all concerns brought up well before the Euro was even instituted, much less expanded to semi-broke nations like Greece. The EU doesn't seem particularly interested in admitting that there are massive differences culturally and fiscally between the countries and that these differences mean that a unified currency with no monetary flexibility is doomed to fail.
EUR crushing USD early in its lifecycle after naysayers shouted down EUR didn't help things.