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What's up with the Euro?
- Thread starter gkarris
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^^^
LOL - obviously, they're not working for Germany...
I'm an American - our money works fine everywhere...
LOL - obviously, they're not working for Germany...
I'm an American - our money works fine everywhere...
ironically thanks to the euro germany is moving more and more into a political strong arm position, since no matter what, their export economy is bat s... insane
greece already failed, ireland falling apart with a 30% budget deficit (allowed EU critera 3%) despite being a netto-receipist of EU money for years (ironically after both countries being ruled by conservative parties) .. and portugal is already rumored to be next on the list with losing hundreds of jobs per day
meanwhile in germany, the actual tax numbers show a dual digit billion increase over last years estimates for this year ...
and with a weak euro the german export industry gets fueled even more
10-15 years ago germany was head to head with the french and the UK economically ... after this crisis though i think the economical leading (and with it the political) position in the EU is heading clearly in germanys favour: germany has stemmed the costs of the unity process by now and the UK simply focused too much on the financial industry
greece already failed, ireland falling apart with a 30% budget deficit (allowed EU critera 3%) despite being a netto-receipist of EU money for years (ironically after both countries being ruled by conservative parties) .. and portugal is already rumored to be next on the list with losing hundreds of jobs per day
meanwhile in germany, the actual tax numbers show a dual digit billion increase over last years estimates for this year ...
and with a weak euro the german export industry gets fueled even more
10-15 years ago germany was head to head with the french and the UK economically ... after this crisis though i think the economical leading (and with it the political) position in the EU is heading clearly in germanys favour: germany has stemmed the costs of the unity process by now and the UK simply focused too much on the financial industry
This is because Ireland was/is ruled by quite possibly the most corrupt government party since Robert Mugabe crew in Zimbabwe.
Ireland had the 3rd fastest growing economy in the world just 4-5 years ago. Now? Massive pay cuts across the public sector, one of the largest unemployment rates in the EU, and a probably IMF bail out to save our national debt bring down the rest of the Euro.
It's a ****ing disgrace that our people are being made to suffer due to greedy banks borrowing way beyond their means. Add to that, the government then buying out the Banks loans and therefore crippling the rest of the country for the mistakes of the few.
The banks should have fallen, pure and simple. People may have lost their savings (even now, although the puppets are saying that savings for certain banks will be 'guaranteed' ) but at least they may not have lost their jobs.
Glad I got out of their when I got the chance. Anyone with an ounce of sense could see that as soon as the property crash hit the US, the exact same thing was going to happen in Ireland. People borrowed exorbitant amounts of money for property that was priced far beyond it's actual worth. Once that market exploded (and it quite literally did) people didnt buy, then the sellers couldnt pay back the banks, and then the banks didnt have the savings of its customers.
Now that the IMF has pretty much been brought in to bail Ireland out, investors are willing to have a bit more confidence in the Euro, as its future is a bit more certain.
Ireland had the 3rd fastest growing economy in the world just 4-5 years ago. Now? Massive pay cuts across the public sector, one of the largest unemployment rates in the EU, and a probably IMF bail out to save our national debt bring down the rest of the Euro.
It's a ****ing disgrace that our people are being made to suffer due to greedy banks borrowing way beyond their means. Add to that, the government then buying out the Banks loans and therefore crippling the rest of the country for the mistakes of the few.
The banks should have fallen, pure and simple. People may have lost their savings (even now, although the puppets are saying that savings for certain banks will be 'guaranteed' ) but at least they may not have lost their jobs.
Glad I got out of their when I got the chance. Anyone with an ounce of sense could see that as soon as the property crash hit the US, the exact same thing was going to happen in Ireland. People borrowed exorbitant amounts of money for property that was priced far beyond it's actual worth. Once that market exploded (and it quite literally did) people didnt buy, then the sellers couldnt pay back the banks, and then the banks didnt have the savings of its customers.
Now that the IMF has pretty much been brought in to bail Ireland out, investors are willing to have a bit more confidence in the Euro, as its future is a bit more certain.
I bet you'd have been fairly angry if you had £100,000 sitting in an account and you lost most of it, though!
I heard yesterday that we (the UK) are lending 7 billion at around 1.5% to Ireland. Who then repay it at around 5%. Now there's a business opportunity
we (the UK) are lending 7 billion at around 1.5% to Ireland. Who then repay it at around 5%. Now there's a business opportunity
Hmmm... yes - also aren't we actually lending it so they can pay it straight back to our own banks ..? Another nice little bailout for those brilliant masters of the universe in the square mile. Bonuses and champagne all round at Xmas chaps!
Also just to add - "the EU is heading clearly in germanys favour:" - Takao is right, the current situation seems very favourable to Germany. If Europe had independent currencies then the PIGS currencies would be lower, making them more competitive - and the Deutschmark higher making it less competitive. I wonder how long it can last - Germans will surely start to resent the big bills they're going to be presented with while the others will start to resent the awful grim cutbacks needed over a long period to (as they'll probably see it) keep the 'German show' on the road.
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well the situation was already comical during the greece crisis earlier this year with some greece politicians demanding compensation for world war 2 "because the damages during the war are responsible for the greek economy of today"
honestly i can understand german taxpayers ... after all the german politicians are also cutting expenses left and right to finance their budget and then the bailed out countries go around with ridiculous claims like that or demand "germany has to export less" or want to put the blame on them
while in reality Ireland poached a lot of companies to settle there with ridicilous low coporate taxes ... while receiving EU funds for it... and still screwed up
i would call it rather striking that some countries which are now in the worst possible position were, for years, big receivers of EU money (ireland,greece, portugal,spain) ...
If you are going to borrow money, or park your money, with a bank - wouldn't it be nice to do it with a banking system that hasn't had a single bank collapse since the Depression of the 1920s? Or one that doesn't buy and sell your mortgages like a commodity? Or that bought into the sub-prime loan thing?
Just saying....
That's a whole other story, especially here in the US.
I know people who have had to foreclose, and they had a normal conventional mortgage. They had lost their jobs and their money had run out.
Yet, I know those with sub-prime loans and they're fine - mainly because they managed to keep their jobs.
This whole "economic meltdown" was mainly caused by US jobs all going overseas - who here can now afford anything?
Just food for thought...
^^^
LOL - obviously, they're not working for Germany...
I'm an American - our money works fine everywhere...
Unfortunately I think its circling the debt hole
u tube Peter Schiff
Quite a decent article here from the Guardian (UK Newspaper) - about the choices facing Germany right now. Thought the Peter Schiff stuf ^^ was quite interesting.
(As an aside - a Fox news vid on his site which had a bit about the London 'Student Riots' was hilarious - don't panic chaps - we enjoy a good riot occasionally - it's a sort of extreme sport here. (Remember our Football fans from the 80's?). We'll all be back to our normal political activity of sitting around drinking tea and moaning soon.)
(As an aside - a Fox news vid on his site which had a bit about the London 'Student Riots' was hilarious - don't panic chaps - we enjoy a good riot occasionally - it's a sort of extreme sport here. (Remember our Football fans from the 80's?). We'll all be back to our normal political activity of sitting around drinking tea and moaning soon.)
I have been folllowing it for little while and the German people are getting fed up quickly. They were promised when they were switching that german would not have to bail out or fork tons of money over to the weaker economies in the Eurozone or countries with less fiscal sense than Germany. Right now that is not the case. Country after Country is having to be bailed out and it is quickly looking worse and worse.
I could see German saying screw it and taking the short term loss on switching back to the Mark. The Euro would be screwed and quickly die.
I bet right now England is really glad that it did not switch off the pound.
I could see German saying screw it and taking the short term loss on switching back to the Mark. The Euro would be screwed and quickly die.
I bet right now England is really glad that it did not switch off the pound.
I don't think you understand what caused the melt down and if regular citizens are not made aware of the real reason, your country will be doomed to repeat it.
What brought about the melt down was the deregulation of the banking industry to allow for loans and mortgages to portioned out into securities instruments and sold on the open financial markets. In Canada, banks were not allowed to do that. They had to have collateral to back up the loans they offered which meant that credit has been and still is much harder to come by in Canada than the US.
The deregulation fueled explosive economic growth in the past because it allowed lenders to sell off their debts and then lend even more money but now you have to pay the consequences for that decision. It created an environment where the holders for the debt were separated from the borrowers and the lenders did not have to hold as much responsibility for the debt being paid back so they were willing to take greater risks.
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There's a lot of talk here at the moment about Ireland having to default at some point despite the bailout. (I think the bailout money interest is rumoured to be at about 6.7%). If I was the Irish Government I wouldn't accept it at that rate and I'd default.
I'm German, and for me the introduction of the Euro felt like a 50% salary cut for a very long list of reasons. Most of the prices of every day goods just went through the roof when the Euro came, but the salaries did not increase accordingly. In many cases, it felt as if they just changed the currency symbol behind/before the price. One Mark was supposed to be something around 52 Euro Cents. When they were done, the felt value of one Euro was that of one Mark. The problem with that was that I no longer made 6000 Marks per month but 3200 Euros or so instead. Maybe you get the picture.
Now that we have indebted our grand children in order to "save" some banks, we also have to put the grand children of our grand children in debt to save other European countries with weak economies. And the really disturbing thing about this is that our government does not even have money for our social system (of which we always were VERY proud), our educational system or health care.
For decades, we've been having a neglected unemployment problem while at the same time we've been importing more and more foreigners. Why have been doing this? Because we've lost both World Wars and nobody here wants to be called a Nazi. Which is plain and simple idiotic, because stopping an immigration flood when you have unemployment and other economic problems is a natural thing to do when you have to insure the economic survival of your country. EVERYBODY does it, including the US, Canada, Australia, Spain, France - you name it. The result is that we have millions of unemployed people and our industry is still importing cheap foreign workers that will work for less money than an average German citizen. Americans should be able to relate to this situation: Try competing with the salary of an illegal Mexican immigrant or with an Indian IT specialist.
I've spent enough time being a foreigner myself and know how difficult it is to live in a foreign country, and I have a "live and let live" attitude. But since I have a responsibility towards my own family and am forced to pay for all the idiotic decisions that our government makes, I have reached a point where I say screw the Euro, and screw the European Union. The experiment was a failure and has cost us dearly. Let's go either back to individual nations and individual currencies, or let's at least go back to the initial European Union of the six funding nations - that thing worked rather well, because they all had a rather strong economy.
I once liked the vision of a unified Europe. The problem is that nobody has the money to actually pay for the dream.
Although good for us the UK being out of the Eurozone puts far too much pressure on the Germans to pick up the slack from the Mediterranean countries. France desperately needs to put in a growth spurt or the pressure on the Germans will be too much. It will be similar to how the Catalans are wanting out of Spain as they're sick of paying for everything whilst others do nothing to help themselves.
As for Ireland, I'm glad we lent them the money. We owe it to the Irish in a way we don't for other EU members in trouble. As jeremy h points out too, that £7bn is coming straight back to the UK. It gives the Irish some breathing space whilst ensuring there's no domino effect on our banks.
Spain is now pulling back into slow growth and reining in its public spending. Italy is out of recession. If Ireland can be stabilised the Eurozone will weather the crisis whilst Greece sorts itself out.
As for Ireland, I'm glad we lent them the money. We owe it to the Irish in a way we don't for other EU members in trouble. As jeremy h points out too, that £7bn is coming straight back to the UK. It gives the Irish some breathing space whilst ensuring there's no domino effect on our banks.
Spain is now pulling back into slow growth and reining in its public spending. Italy is out of recession. If Ireland can be stabilised the Eurozone will weather the crisis whilst Greece sorts itself out.
The Euro is going through a bad time at the moment, but it will bounce back.
A bit dented but alive, but the larger picture is that world has changed and the WEST is no longer the economic engine of the world. The US/UK banking system where houses were seen as CASH COWS and not homes, saw to that.
The days of easy credit are over, get used to it.
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A bit dented but alive, but the larger picture is that world has changed and the WEST is no longer the economic engine of the world. The US/UK banking system where houses were seen as CASH COWS and not homes, saw to that.
The days of easy credit are over, get used to it.
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The PIGS were no saints but the poor innocent little Germans have a hell of a lot tied up in those countries. Have a little read of this. They couldn't have made as big a **** up as they did without the Germans.
Same goes for a lot of other people contributing to the bailout. Only real way that the can fall in value relative to others (esp the dollar after QE2), seeing as the ECB (which would have been brought down by Ireland if it hadn't forced a bailout down her throat) won't (theoretically anyway) allow significant quantitative easing. France and Germany get to rive the devaluation wave while the PIGS suffer the downward spiral of deflationary policies and massive unemployment. Just wait until the ECB raises interest rates, then the party will really start for the PIGS. Also, as other posters have pointed out the UK banks have well over 150 billion tied up in Irish assets which the govt would be loath to have them lose. Add that to the fact that the UK does more trade with Ireland the all the BRICs combined.
Things are about to get very hairy around Europe over the next couple of years. The default bell will be ringing before long methinks.
This...is debatable and borderline wrong. Please don't state personal opinions/beliefs as facts.