Wednesday, September 07, 2011

OK, but the Belgian Beer Festival is still a go, right?

Lucien may need to consult with OMC in case he needs a bolt-hole when it all goes south. This isn't from some loony-fringe EuroSkeptic fever swamp - no, via zerohedge, this is from UBS.
Under the current structure and with the current membership, the Euro does not work. Either the current structure will have to change, or the current membership will have to change.
...
"Were a stronger country such as Germany to leave the Euro, the consequences would include corporate default, recapitalisation of the banking system and collapse of international trade. If Germany were to leave, we believe the cost to be around EUR6,000 to EUR8,000 for every German adult and child in the first year, and a range of EUR3,500 to EUR4,500 per person per year thereafter. That is the equivalent of 20% to 25% of GDP in the first year.
...
The economic cost is, in many ways, the least of the concerns investors should have about a break-up. Fragmentation of the Euro would incur political costs. Europe’s “soft power” influence internationally would cease (as the concept of “Europe” as an integrated polity becomes meaningless). It is also worth observing that almost no modern fiat currency monetary unions have broken up without some form of
authoritarian or military government, or civil war.
... and that would start when the teeming masses who have lived entire generations with nothing but a guv'munt check don't get one.

Ah, the Euro - nice work internationalists!

8 comments:

butch said...

It's a feature, not a bug.

ewok40k said...

that's why we need unified armed forces, external policy, and all the trappings of the federal government!
EU ---->USE

MR T's Haircut said...

yep, read this also this morning... good thing we can own guns down across the pond....

UltimaRatioRegis said...

So, you want a unified Europe?  Who's paying?  Mostly the Germans, so they, somewhat understandably, will have a major say in those countries' fiscal policies, as well as foreign policies. 

Didn't we fight two world wars to keep Germany from.... ?  Oh, never mind. 

Ironic, that.  And with the way Merkel is cozying to Putin over NG distribution, Poland should not assume that Germany will act in any way other than in Germany's best interests.  Which may or may not be in Poland's best interests.

Just sayin'

ewok40k said...

We must hang together or otherwise we sahll crash and burn separately, to paraphrase Franklin... Germany is the most robust economy around here, so perhaps it is time to adopt their ways of doing things... And if the US were that way, it would be ruled by Texas (Hello Mr Perry...) :P
One fiscal policy, one foreign policy. And yeah one army/navy/AF! Heck, Polish tankers are already driving around in Leopards :3
BTW, only Europe as a whole has enough of weight to deal on equal footing with Moscow...

ewok40k said...

Alternative is fragmentation and return of Bismarckian Realpolitik - or worse...
Ultimately it is up to voters - if greater integration will get the popular vote of no confidence, we are bound to do with what we have, namely 25 independent foreign policies and armed forces. To say that it is not the most effective way of doing things, would be an understatement of epic proportions.

UltimaRatioRegis said...

ewok, that train has left the station.  Mssrs. Putin and Medvedev will ensure that they keep key forces as friends (Germany) and keep others by the economic/military short hairs (Ukraine, Ossetia). 

What we have seemingly forgotten in the post 1945 bliss of a bi-polar world is that nations will act in their own best interests, or will perish.  No permanent allies.  Realpolitik gave us NATO and WP.  Without them, or without their effectiveness in the case of NATO, no such collective security is at all meaningful.  So smart nations are looking to themselves first.  Witness the Visegrad Group.  Inconceivable a decade and a half ago.  To those countries, who exist within an angry arm swipe of their old enemy Russia, reliance on the West (France, England) has been a losing proposition.

We are seeing the devolving of the EU/USE into what Wilhelm II airily dismissed as "Klein Staaten Europa".  The "little states of Europe".  Which means that the dynamic looks much more, in some ways, like 1913 than it does like 1991.  Or 1938.

ewok40k said...

I think Russia might have overplayed it's hand - even Germany under Merkel is a little bit wary of Russian intentions than uder Schroeder. And while Germans might be shutting their reactors in favor of gas, when they can import it from Poland soon (shale FTW!) we will see how much influence will Russsia wield...