Will the Eurozone Collapse?

[Maniacal]

OP knows how to make a poll option for people who just like to vote in polls.

 

[Leoreth]

If they kick us out, we will invade the Faeroes and Iceland within hours

Is that a threat or an offer?

I still wonder why the ECB doesn't just "print" 500 billion €uros for Greece to overcome the immediate crisis.

What could anybody do about that? The Americans have been doing it for years now, the Japanese for decades. Since Europe currently doesn't face any inflation pressures and the Euro is actually too strong compared to other major currencies, it could actually help not just Greece, but the whole Eurozone.

Because currently everyone in the EU tries to keep the cake and eat it, that's actually the greatest danger in this whole crisis in my opinion. It's not the money it will cost, but rather the attitude that we try to weasle out of this with minimal damage.

 

[RedRalph]

Is that a threat or an offer?

I believe the Irish people want Total War. And I'm the man to give it to them

 

[EnglishCrusader]

You will be selling some copies of Total War? How much? Or do I not get any because I'm not Irish?

 

[RedRalph]

You will be selling some copies of Total War? How much? Or do I not get any because I'm not Irish?

Once the Faeroes and Iceland are subdued, and we get Scotland, Wales and France on board, you'll get your total war, don't worry...

 

[EnglishCrusader]

For free?!

 

[RedRalph]

For free?!

Oh you'll get total war for free... for free forever!!!







Oh wait, that doesn't work

 

[EnglishCrusader]

Oh cool. Can I then go on to sell those copies to make further profit?

 

[Leoreth]

I believe the Irish people want Total War. And I'm the man to give it to them

Rome, Medieval or Empire?

What, all of them? You're MAD!

 

[EnglishCrusader]

Already beat you there, Leoreth .

 

[GoodSarmatian]

if he's giving them away for free I'd say the pre-Empire ones. They don't have steam and are easier to pirate.
I'd recommend Rome because It has burning pigs. It's the closest thing these games have to car bombs, the Irishman's weapon of choice.

 

[EnglishCrusader]

I like Rome and Medieval the best - wait, this thread is about the Eurozone collapsing? Meh, Total War is better.

 

[plasmacannon]

Only, if, they let it.

 

[innonimatu]

Collapse? When somebody says that, I imagine total disintegration. That's not going to happen.

Greece can't leave without ruining itself in the process - it would literally have to leave suddenly and unexpectedly, in a few hours, because otherwise there would be a run on the banks the minute it was announced.

The minute Greece announces that it is leaving the euro and freezing bank deposits, there will be a run on banks... in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, and in short order France. And that will kill the "eurozone" once and for all. Might well kill the EU, and looking at what it is today, good riddance.
Realistically, if greece leaves and freezes its banks, so must several other countries - it'll be a domino which in short order (most likely over a single weekend) will dismantle at least half the "eurozone".

All EU governments are in full political suicide mode. It has gotten so ridiculous that the country economically doing better in the "eurozone" is.. Belgium, which has the benefit of not having a government capable of making policy changes! This is the best example of how dysfunctional European politicians have become. Of course it will collapse!

 

[REDY]

I love the Czechs. A nation of second-guessers par excellence, always ready to offer their valuable opinion so long as they are not expected to actually do anything or share any responsibility*

Sometimes I wonder why they even took us into the EU; if I had been in charge of Brussels back then, I'd never have allowed it.

---
* - I am not talking about you personally here, you just remind me of all that nonsense I read and hear in the Czech media and from the mouths of our genius politicians

The collapse of eurozone would be good for everyone expect small countries importing to Eurozone, so I think that Czechs take enough responsibility (and they suffer already enough). Funny is that critics were silenced by europhiles all the time and when is clear that they were all the time right it became incorrect to tell truth publicly. If you realy want remind nonsense, listen to politicians making from their speeches just propaganda for bankers and stokers to not panic.

 

[innonimatu]

I still wonder why the ECB doesn't just "print" 500 billion €uros for Greece to overcome the immediate crisis.

Because the crises isn't financial. It's a trade and unemployment crisis, which is having political and financial consequences. The euro, which is indeed Europe's neo-gold standard, will cause those problems to continue so long as it exists. The debt crisis are just a reflection of the accumulated trade deficits. And the trade deficits are a political necessity if the facade of "economic convergence" within the EU is to be kept. And economic convergence is a necessity for justifying not only the euro, but for the whole european political project.

The theory was that the single market and single currency, coupled with some conditional "gifts" of funds over a few years, would cause the economies of the different countries to converge to the same level of development. The observed practice has been different. Why? That falls within the province of development economics, I'll just say that it is utterly idiotic to expect that governments will be able to competently oversee development even as the powers of those governments are being reduced in accordance with the european political dogmas of the "open market" and "competition". It's a contradiction! To make it worse, the most industrialized countries within the EU still aggressively protect their "national champions", and the "open market" is clearly stacked. The EU has all along been a schizophrenic project, all its politicians seeking to give with one hand only so they can take with the other. National interests still rule, and that is evident from the relative lack of private lobbying (bribing) efforts directed at the bureaucracy in Brussels.
The present debt/euro crisis is just a symptom of much deeper problems, and nothing which can be ended just by throwing money at it - any amount of money.

 

[Gigaz]

Everyone is telling us Germans that the Euro is so great for our exports... That is indeed true. The only problem is that some of the exports will not be paid on the long run.
On the other hand, the Deutsche Mark might by now be worth about 12 Dollars and thus heavily overvalued, I guess. Then we'd export only money until the bubble bursts.

 

[innonimatu]

Sorry for the multiple posts but, for the record: I fully expect the EU to still try to thrown a pile of euros at the debt problem, in a last desperate attempt to preserve the Euro. And I dare only speculate as to the consequences: its inevitable failure may poison the single currency so throughout that it will have to be entirely disbanded, with every single country going back to national currency, instead of just splitting the euro into two or more currencies.

You see, that the euro is a single currency is already a fantasy: when, say, Germany creates debt in euros, it is worth a lot; when Greece creates debt in Euros, it's nearly worthless. It manages to be both worthless and worth a lot, depending on which sovereign actor is using it, clearly a failure for any currency. It has been compared to the gold standard, and worked in that way for 10 years, but no longer. It's now in that final stage of past gold standard systems when governments openly cheated on its rules, and everyone knew it. Divergence between the official value and the real value of the currency is already happening, like it happened with the earlier european attempt at monetary union, the Latin Monetary Union. And this time it didn't take a war to cause the a debt crisis capable of bringing the system down.

 

[Mark1031]

I have a question . Why can’t Greece just default? Why does it matter so much to the rest of the EU nations. In the states we have local government entities sometimes default I think. Hell the post-office is going to default soon.

 

[REDY]

It would be big credibility hit of EU, nearly countries with debts in EU would be not trusted that they will pay them. This would be first step for defaults of other endangered countries. Drastical decrease of international investments in Europe and trust of private towards EU projects.

In other words, the system would finally start healing up.