Support NeoGAF

[1871]

The eurosceptic right has been proven right, time and time again in this crisis.

Not really. This crisis has proven that national and financial interests will prevail, and this will hurt people. Nationalism is a plague. We need international solidarity. It is possible. It is just not what this EU is for.

 

[ElTorro]

LOL...

"Cutback-Taliban Schäuble wants to sink Greece in the Aegean Sea with the Treuhandanstalt 2.0."

Wagenknecht is indeed insane.

 

[nature boy]

A bit off-topic, but Podemos is tanking in the polls in Spain.

 

[CyclopsRock]

Not really. This crisis has proven that national and financial interests will prevail, and this will hurt people. Nationalism is a plague. We need international solidarity. It is possible. It is just not what this EU is for.

Then isn't the single currency putting the horse before the cart, somewhat?

 

[oti]

LOL...

"Cutback-Taliban Schäuble wants to sink Greece in the Aegean Sea with the Treuhandanstalt 2.0."

Wagenknecht is indeed insane.

She's like the secret even more extrem boss after you defeated Tsipras.

 

[Theonik]

Not really. This crisis has proven that national and financial interests will prevail, and this will hurt people. Nationalism is a plague. We need international solidarity. It is possible. It is just not what this EU is for.

It is the basis on which the EU was built. It is not what the EU is used for today. That needs to change and...

Then isn't the single currency putting the horse before the cart, somewhat?

Of course, the common currency should never have existed before this problem was solved. But now that we have it we can't get rid of it, so we are forced to re-think our ways or we risk what is happening right now which can only result in a dissolution of the EU as a whole and CHAOS.

 

[KingSnake]

A bit off-topic, but Podemos is tanking in the polls in Spain.

The Tsipras effect.

I wrote some days ago how Podemos will end up hating Tsipras.

 

[CyclopsRock]

Of course, the common currency should never have existed before this problem was solved. But now that we have it we can't get rid of it, so we are forced to re-think our ways or we risk what is happening right now which can only result in a dissolution of the EU as a whole and CHAOS.

Indeedy, but I was responding to someone who claimed that the "right wing eurosceptic" predictions of what would happen weren't correct. I think they were, though they were (in some circles, certainly) ridiculed at the time.

 

[KingSnake]

Edit: image not working - deleted

 

[Theonik]

The Tsipras effect.

I wrote some days ago how Podemos will end up hating Tsipras.

Keikaku douri.

Indeedy, but I was responding to someone who claimed that the "right wing eurosceptic" predictions of what would happen weren't correct. I think they were, though they were (in some circles, certainly) ridiculed at the time.

I like the EU, and think parties like UKIP while they started on a solid platform are absolute farces today. It really annoys me to have to agree with them on this matter. Hell, even parties like Golden Dawn are going to town right now.

 

[CyclopsRock]

I like the EU, and think parties like UKIP while they started on a solid platform are absolute farces today. It really annoys me to have to agree with them on this matter. Hell, even parties like Golden Dawn are going to town right now.

I think the mainstream right (in the UK at least) aren't necessarily anti-EU (and certainly weren't back in the mid 90's), it was the Euro they were against being a part of. The typical response was that they were inwards-looking "Little Englander" sorts who still have visions of the mighty British Empire rather than contenting themselves to being just a part of a larger Europe. Of course, they probably were inwards-looking Little Englanders, but they were very right about the Euro. "A burning building with no exits" indeed.

 

[ty_hot]

I don't know how many times have you been to Greece really but I've been there a few times over the past 10 years.
Let me tell you about restaurants in Greece.
In 50% of the restaurants I've eaten in, when it came to paying the meal, all we've received was something like this:

(in greek of course)

The further away from the town centre you are eating, the more chances you get of receiving a handwritten note. Granted, the situation has improved in the past years, but it's still highly probable you'll receive something like this.

Talking about VAT tax in this context is a little pointless. It could be very well be that the restaurants have a fixed monthly/yearly tax that takes into consideration an overall minimum VAT tax on the services sold, I don't know.

I spent 30 days in Greece last summer, that is 100% true. I even got handrwitten notes in restaurants near tourist attractions.... One day I took a bus to a city 2 hours from Athens, I paid directly to the driver and he didn't give me anything at all, just said 'sit and enjoy the ride'.

If you think that tourism is really important to Greek economy, when nobody pays taxes on restaurants and even in some buses, things ofc won't be good.

 

[Theonik]

I think the mainstream right (in the UK at least) aren't necessarily anti-EU (and certainly weren't back in the mid 90's), it was the Euro they were against being a part of. The typical response was that they were inwards-looking "Little Englander" sorts who still have visions of the mighty British Empire rather than contenting themselves to being just a part of a larger Europe. Of course, they probably were inwards-looking Little Englanders, but they were very right about the Euro. "A burning building with no exits" indeed.

They were right for the wrong reasons is how I'd describe it. Though, I wouldn't expect the average citizen to properly understand the value of currency and the architectural flaws of the eurozone. Euroskepticism is in fashion in the UK again though even without the Euro

 

[CyclopsRock]

They were right for the wrong reasons is how I'd describe it. Though, I wouldn't expect the average citizen to properly understand the value of currency and the architectural flaws of the eurozone. Euroskepticism is in fashion in the UK again though even without the Euro

hmmmyeeeaaahhh kinda, but I don't think the two are unrelated. Almost all the news coming out of Europe in the last... well, 7 years or so has been negative. Headlines about how Yorkshire has created more jobs than the whole of France, how countries are being bailed out, Germany risks losing loads of money if Greece defaults, Spain and Greece's enormous youth unemployment levels etc. Not all of this is created by the Euro, but a lot of it is. And even if people don't really rationalise any of these nuances, the over-arching take away from the question "Do I want the UK to be more involved with Europe, or less?" is rarely "Yeah, gimme more of that" which I think explains the current Euroscepticism. That said, I think the euroscepticism has peaked already.

 

[Theonik]

hmmmyeeeaaahhh kinda, but I don't think the two are unrelated. Almost all the news coming out of Europe in the last... well, 7 years or so has been negative. Headlines about how Yorkshire has created more jobs than the whole of France, how countries are being bailed out, Germany risks losing loads of money if Greece defaults, Spain and Greece's enormous youth unemployment levels etc. Not all of this is created by the Euro, but a lot of it is. And even if people don't really rationalise any of these nuances, the over-arching take away from the question "Do I want the UK to be more involved with Europe, or less?" is rarely "Yeah, gimme more of that" which I think explains the current Euroscepticism. That said, I think the euroscepticism has peaked already.

It's obvious to the average citizen now though not necessarily the real cause it just sounds bad like you said. Back then though? Nobody actually knew any better. Which also explains how people in Greece, Spain, Portugal at large view the Euro favourably despite the hardship it's caused them.

 

[oti]

439 vote in favour
119 vote against
40 abstentions

 

[KingSnake]

So, now that everyone voted and the plan is running, I guess euro zone is again a happy shinny place, right?

 

[oti]

Next crisis: Huge fire in Lakonia.

 

[CyclopsRock]

It's obvious to the average citizen now though not necessarily the real cause it just sounds bad like you said. Back then though? Nobody actually knew any better. Which also explains how people in Greece, Spain, Portugal at large view the Euro favourably despite the hardship it's caused them.

I'm not totally sure if that's the case. I think there was - is - a significant "cultural" element to the Euro that is atypical for fiscal discussions; The idea of a united, strong, world-stage-leading united Europe is an attractive one to a lot of countries, and I think that helped gloss over the problems. It's not like fiat currencies are a new thing, and explaining the inherent problem with the Euro takes about two sentences and is relatively easy for anyone to understand, even those lacking in economic knowledge. The UK largely avoided this, I think, because we typically don't see ourselves as "European", certainly not in any real cultural way. As such, with the romance and cultural attractiveness removed, we ended up with a slightly more dry, fiscal look at it. Here's an article by William Hauge, the Conservative leader at the time. I won't quote it all, but here's a few paragraphs that I think summed it up quite well:

I was regarded around the EU as a rather eccentric figure, almost pitiable in being unable to see where the great sweep of history and prosperity was heading. One former senior colleague in Britain said I had become "more extreme even than Mrs Thatcher", as if this was an unimaginable horror. Idealistic heads in Brussels were shaken in sorrow that the dreaded Eurosceptics were not only growing in the Conservative Party but had now taken it over, with me having become, astonishingly, its leader.

There is no doubt that I was wrong about quite a few things when I was leading my party. But I hope the eurozone leaders meeting today will remember that those of us who criticised the euro at its creation were correct in our forecasts. Otherwise they risk adding to the monumental errors of judgment, analysis and leadership made by their predecessors in 1998.

Those who poured scorn on some of us who predicted "wage cuts, tax hikes, and the creation of vicious unemployment blackspots" – all now experienced in abundance by the people of Greece – should at least now make the effort to understand why these predictions were true.

Economics has few laws, which is why economic forecasts are so maddeningly unreliable. If it has one law, it is this: that if you fix together some things which naturally vary, such as interest rates and exchange rates, other things, such as unemployment and wages, will vary more instead. And in a single currency zone, which has exactly this effect, you can only get round these problems by paying big subsidies to poorly performing areas, and expecting workers to move in large numbers to better performing ones.

This is what happens in the United States, or indeed within the United Kingdom. In general it works. In the eurozone it does not work, because either Greeks have to cure their poor economic performance or Germans have to pay them big subsidies forever, and neither are willing or able to do so. This, in a sentence, is the problem of the eurozone, and continued denial of it will only make that problem worse.

This is generally the argument he was making at the time, though whether the UK populace understood it in those terms might best be left to someone who wasn't 10 at the time to describe.

 

[Arksy]

They were right about the Euro being a recessionary device for the south of Europe, they were right about the anti-democratic nature of the project. They were right about how there is no European demos. They were right about the fact that the crisis was not going to be solved by the bailout, they were right about the fact that the EU was going to cause division in Europe.

They obviously weren't right about everything....but the events so far have vindicated their stances.

 

[Reuenthal]

They were right about the Euro being a recessionary device for the south of Europe, they were right about the anti-democratic nature of the project. They were right about how there is no European demos. They were right about the fact that the crisis was not going to be solved by the bailout, they were right about the fact that the EU was going to cause division in Europe.

They obviously weren't right about everything....but the events so far have vindicated their stances.

Yeah, I think what happened was that among British euroskeptics there were plenty of things they were right about for the right reasons. However there was also some populist bullshit they complained about. EU optimists looked only on the later, and didn't pay much mind to the actual correct euroskeptic arguments.

 

[scamander]

https://twitter.com/BBC_Joe_Lynam



You have some damn rich bakers in Berlin, stop eating so many pastries.

Everybody knows that. Yet, is still an over the top comparison that is well worth a joke.

I'm confident that even with all the loopholes, Amazon paid in its entire activity more taxes than the bakers from Berlin.

Gabriel said, that every baker in Berlin pays a higher tax rate (!) than google, amazon, starbucks etc.

Jeez, if that's the quality standard of the BBC, I'm not wondering about the amount of eurosceptics in the UK anymore.

 

[KingSnake]

Gabriel said, that every baker in Berlin pays a higher tax rate (!) than google, amazon, starbucks etc.

And you think that's a good thing in any possible way?

 

[scamander]

And you think that's a good thing in any possible way?

What exactly? The fact he is stating or the statement itself?

 

[Chariot]

LOL...

"Cutback-Taliban Schäuble wants to sink Greece in the Aegean Sea with the Treuhandanstalt 2.0."

Wagenknecht is indeed insane.

Gysi is the lone sane man in the LINKE. He uses hyperbole, but usually in a manner that can be understood as rhetorical, not batshit insanity.

 

[tokkun]

It's obvious to the average citizen now though not necessarily the real cause it just sounds bad like you said. Back then though? Nobody actually knew any better. Which also explains how people in Greece, Spain, Portugal at large view the Euro favourably despite the hardship it's caused them.

They may look favorably on the Euro because its impact has not been all negative. The Euro also fixed their inflation problem and - for a time - significantly reduced borrowing costs. Five years before the Euro, Greece was paying 20% yield on treasury bonds. Five years after, it was paying 4%.

In hindsight, people say that making it much cheaper for the governments to borrow created a moral hazard and ultimately got them into this debt mess, but if that money had primarily been used for modernization of infrastructure and increasing the competitiveness of export industries rather than for social programs, their economy might have come out of this in a stronger position than when it entered. For all the condemnation of austerity in these discussions, few people acknowledge that if you are in a position where you have to pay double-digit yields on government bonds, you are going to be forced into de facto austerity because of how expensive it becomes to take on debt. The Euro enabled almost a decade of stimulus spending.

Well, in any case, that probably no longer applies for Greece. Although their bond prices had recovered back to 5% as recently as last fall, I imagine this crisis will keep them higher for a while.

 

[Tripon]

We will be back talking about Greece defaulting and leaving the eu about another 3 years.

 

[Coriolanus]

Gabriel said, that every baker in Berlin pays a higher tax rate (!) than google, amazon, starbucks etc.

Jeez, if that's the quality standard of the BBC, I'm not wondering about the amount of eurosceptics in the UK anymore.

The dude is reporting what has been said. Via twitter live coverage.

If you expected twitter coverage to offer an in-depth analysis of the veracity of the claims, well....

Unless the dude did not, in fact, say that?

We will be back talking about Greece defaulting and leaving the eu about another 3 years.

With automatic cuts in the deal? Nah, it'll happen far sooner than that.

 

[KingSnake]

What exactly? The fact he is stating or the statement itself?

Both. The fact that the bakers in Germany pay a higher tax rate than the big corporations and the fact that this is used in a statement as a praise. By a social-democrat nonetheless.

 

[LJ11]

They may look favorably on the Euro because its impact has not been all negative. The Euro also fixed their inflation problem and - for a time - significantly reduced borrowing costs. Five years before the Euro, Greece was paying 20% yield on treasury bonds. Five years after, it was paying 4%.

In hindsight, people say that making it much cheaper for the governments to borrow created a moral hazard and ultimately got them into this debt mess, but if that money had primarily been used for modernization of infrastructure and increasing the competitiveness of export industries rather than for social programs, their economy might have come out of this in a stronger position than when it entered. For all the condemnation of austerity in these discussions, few people acknowledge that if you are in a position where you have to pay double-digit yields on government bonds, you are going to be forced into de facto austerity because of how expensive it becomes to take on debt. The Euro enabled almost a decade of stimulus spending.

Well, in any case, that probably no longer applies for Greece. Although their bond prices had recovered back to 5% as recently as last fall, I imagine this crisis will keep them higher for a while.

It's hard to control where the money goes once the floodgates open. Spreads converged, debt loads ballooned but not every country went overboard with public spending. Spain for instance went crazy with housing, as did Ireland, Greece packed high on the govt side. You're right about an opportunity presenting itself, borrow cheap and spend wisely, it's just hard to control the spend wisely side. Usually someone gets out of line, and there's little you can do about it.

 

[Arksy]

We will be back talking about Greece defaulting and leaving the eu about another 3 years.

I love the fact that their solution to the grossly unsustainable debt is to pile on more debt. Insanity.

 

[Coriolanus]

It's hard to control where the money goes once the floodgates open. Spreads converged, debt loads ballooned but not every country went overboard with public spending. Spain for instance went crazy with housing, as did Ireland, Greece packed high on the govt side. You're right about an opportunity presenting itself, borrow cheap and spend wisely, it's just hard to control the spend wisely side. Usually someone gets out of line, and there's little you can do about it.

Half makes you wonder if maastricht shouldn't have focused on corruption, instead of debt.

 

[Fenderputty]

I love the fact that their solution to the grossly unsustainable austerity is to pile on more authority. Insanity.

Fyfy

 

[Theonik]

They may look favorably on the Euro because its impact has not been all negative. The Euro also fixed their inflation problem and - for a time - significantly reduced borrowing costs. Five years before the Euro, Greece was paying 20% yield on treasury bonds. Five years after, it was paying 4%.

In hindsight, people say that making it much cheaper for the governments to borrow created a moral hazard and ultimately got them into this debt mess, but if that money had primarily been used for modernization of infrastructure and increasing the competitiveness of export industries rather than for social programs, their economy might have come out of this in a stronger position than when it entered. For all the condemnation of austerity in these discussions, few people acknowledge that if you are in a position where you have to pay double-digit yields on government bonds, you are going to be forced into de facto austerity because of how expensive it becomes to take on debt. The Euro enabled almost a decade of stimulus spending.

Well, in any case, that probably no longer applies for Greece. Although their bond prices had recovered back to 5% as recently as last fall, I imagine this crisis will keep them higher for a while.

Arguably, the Euro didn't solve any of these problems. It just hid them in a way that self-adjustment no longer worked.

In the case of Greece though, a large portion of the money did go to public works and infrastructure, albeit they were quite inefficient in how that money was spent. They also owed a lot of money before the Euro, borrowed at some very bad interest rates. Their debt piled on and a large portion of the new money went towards paying the old debts with new debt at better interest rates. (they had ended up paying some 600bn in interest rates in a decade)

I love the fact that their solution to the grossly unsustainable debt is to pile on more debt. Insanity.

The thing is, that even if this program was a good program, at this point everyone expects it to fail so the market will be very reserved in how they react.

Fyfy

Not mutually exclusive!

 

[Acorn]

The Tsipras effect.

I wrote some days ago how Podemos will end up hating Tsipras.

The heel turn will fuck all the anti austerity parties.

 

[Acorn]

If the Germans and French etc really want the euro to work they have to accept they will need to subsidise the weaker economies. Either do that or move to a fiscal union or abandon the euro.

If none of those happen the entire European project will collapse.

 

[scamander]

The dude is reporting what has been said. Via twitter live coverage.

If you expected twitter coverage to offer an in-depth analysis of the veracity of the claims, well....

Unless the dude did not, in fact, say that?

As I already stated, Gabriel said that every baker in Berlin pays a higher tax rate than google, amazon, starbucks. etc.
The bbc reporter changed this to "Gabriel: every baker in Berlin pays more taxes than amazon and google." Which is a completely different and ridiculous statement, that never has been made.

Both. The fact that the bakers in Germany pay a higher tax rate than the big corporations and the fact that this is used in a statement as a praise. By a social-democrat nonetheless.

"It can't be we have on the one hand not enough money for bailout packages, taking refugees [...] and on the other hand it is acceptable that billion dollar corporations avoid paying taxes and elude their responsibility. Every master baker in Berlin pays higher tax rates than google, amazon, starbucks and others. It's the European commision which published, that Europe is losing 1,5 trillion Euro every year thanks to that; 150 billion alone in our country. And that's why I tell you, if we are serious about the responsibility in Europe, we have to make sure this comes to an end."

'nuff said.

 

[Gurgelhals]

The heel turn will fuck all the anti austerity parties.

Imho, the anti-austerity left has to embrace some kind of "anti-Euro but pro-Europe" stance and must be prepared to leave the Eurozone Varoufakis-style, if it wants to have a chance (i.e. "In contrast to the gobshite right-wing eurosceptics, we still firmly belive in the European project, but the Euro is clearly shit and if it's politically impossible to reform it and make it somehow not shit, then we're left with no choice but to return to our own currency"). Otherwise they'll just remain susceptible to blackmail by the Austerians and the entire Tsipras-debacle will be repeated ad infinitum.

 

[Frankfurter]

If the Germans and French etc really want the euro to work they have to accept they will need to subsidise the weaker economies. Either do that or move to a fiscal union or abandon the euro.

If none of those happen the entire European project will collapse.

Subsidizing other Bundesländer (~states) within Germany isn't exactly popular, so tbh I don't see a situation in which a majority of Germans would be pro-subsidizing weaker European economies.
+ in a way we already subsidize weaker economies (~€8 billion net-payment to the EU budget).

I think we are stuck in a situation, where the two most influential powers (France, Germany) want two different things, although both should be done at the same time. France would like to have the fiscal union, but no oversight whatsoever over the budget of the individual Eurozone countries, Germany would like to have oversight over budgets (in the ideal case even some kind of veto), but no fiscal union.
Neither is gonna work out imo. A fiscal union without oversight is moral hazard par excellence. Overseeing budgets without a fiscal union is probably just gonna cause more countries having austerity and being fucked in the process.

 

[Arksy]

Subsidizing other Bundesländer (~states) within Germany isn't exactly popular, so tbh I don't see a situation in which a majority of Germans would be pro-subsidizing weaker European economies.
+ in a way we already subsidize weaker economies (~€8 billion net-payment to the EU budget).

I think we are stuck in a situation, where the two most influential powers (France, Germany) want two different things, although both should be done at the same time. France would like to have the fiscal union, but no oversight whatsoever over the budget of the individual Eurozone countries, Germany would like to have oversight over budgets (in the ideal case even some kind of veto), but no fiscal union.
Neither is gonna work out imo. A fiscal union without oversight is moral hazard par excellence. Overseeing budgets without a fiscal union is probably just gonna cause more countries having austerity and being fucked in the process.

It might not be exactly popular, but it must happen and I'm sure Germans accept it. They have already shouldered a massive bill to repatriate Eastern Germany after the fall of the wall.

In the same way that Australians accept money going from New South Wales to Tasmania, and Americans accept that money needs to go from California, Texas and New York to Montana and Nebraska. It's a fact of life for big countries with diverse states and population centres. Even in England, money gets moved around, and people are ok with it.

The fact that people in Germany (not fair to just pick on the Germans, the Fins and French are also unwilling, as are others) are completely unwilling to give money to Greece (and Spain, and Portugal) in perpetuity tells you everything you need to know about this so called "union".

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Subsidizing other Bundesländer (~states) within Germany isn't exactly popular, so tbh I don't see a situation in which a majority of Germans would be pro-subsidizing weaker European economies.
+ in a way we already subsidize weaker economies (~€8 billion net-payment to the EU budget).

I think we are stuck in a situation, where the two most influential powers (France, Germany) want two different things, although both should be done at the same time. France would like to have the fiscal union, but no oversight whatsoever over the budget of the individual Eurozone countries, Germany would like to have oversight over budgets (in the ideal case even some kind of veto), but no fiscal union.
Neither is gonna work out imo. A fiscal union without oversight is moral hazard par excellence. Overseeing budgets without a fiscal union is probably just gonna cause more countries having austerity and being fucked in the process.

A midway solution is common denominated debt in the form of Eurobonds, with the amount limited by a central authority like the ECB. I mean, this is something that should have been done a decade ago.

 

[ElTorro]

A midway solution is common denominated debt in the form of Eurobonds, with the amount limited by a central authority like the ECB. I mean, this is something that should have been done a decade ago.

I think Merkel said something similar to "over my dead body" when it comes to Eurobonds.

 

[Negotiator]

It seems to me that the German elite is inadequate to lead Europe.

Maybe France and/or UK should step in...

 

[Arksy]

I think Merkel said something similar to "over my dead body" when it comes to Eurobonds.

A few other European countries would agree with her, but that's not the point.

You can't half build a country and expect it to work. It simply doesn't. Greece will either have to leave the Eurozone or Northern Europe will have to bail out Greece in perpetuity.

 

[scamander]

It seems to me that the German elite is inadequate to lead Europe.

Maybe France and/or UK should step in...

The UK is not part of the Eurozone, not to mention the fact that the Grexit would have happened years ago with the UK on the head.

 

[Theonik]

I think Merkel said something similar to "over my dead body" when it comes to Eurobonds.

And that's exactly the problem. It's not really an argument. It must be done. There is no dancing around it anymore, bailing out Greece at this point has been more expensive than having solved the problem in the first place and it's only bound to get worse.

The UK is not part of the Eurozone, not to mention the fact that the Grexit would have happened years ago with the UK on the head.

The UK likes to take an outsider 'Just do X!' position on those things but wouldn't do it if they were in that position.
It's easy for them to yell grexit when they don't have to risk their currency collapsing!

 

[Frankfurter]

A midway solution is common denominated debt in the form of Eurobonds, with the amount limited by a central authority like the ECB. I mean, this is something that should have been done a decade ago.

Eurobonds are even farer away. There is no such thing as "Germany-bonds" in Germany. I.e. obviously the federal republic issues bonds, but states also issue bonds (about ~40% of the public German debt) and their bonds are not backed by the federal government, which results in (vastly) different interest rates if you compare, say, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with Hesse or Bavaria.
As long as that system exists (it should be changed in my opinion btw.), I see 0 chance for Eurobonds.

 

[Negotiator]

The UK is not part of the Eurozone, not to mention the fact that the Grexit would have happened years ago with the UK on the head.

If Germany left Eurozone (highly unlikely*, I know), then the UK wouldn't mind to join in and replace Germany's hegemony.

The UK does not like the current Eurozone, because it's too German-dominated and they don't want to cede sovereignty to Brussels. I'm sure they wouldn't mind if the EU states ceded sovereignty to London, though.

In a sense, you could say that the UK leading Europe would be akin to the good ol' British Empire. And they have proved that they know how to fix the economy without going austerity crazy. The GBP is at an all-time high despite BoE's QE program and let's not forget that the GBP was as low as 1:1 with the Euro back in 2008.

* The only way that could possibly happen is if the NCBs started printing euros unilaterally and since Germany is inflationphobic, then they'd rather leave this union.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Eurobonds are even farer away. There is no such thing as "Germany-bonds" in Germany. I.e. obviously the federal republic issues bonds, but states also issue bonds (about ~40% of the public German debt) and their bonds are not backed by the federal government, which results in (vastly) different interest rates if you compare, say, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with Hesse or Bavaria.
As long as that system exists (it should be changed in my opinion btw.), I see 0 chance for Eurobonds.

I didn't actually know that - I mean, I did know German states issued separate bonds but I wasn't aware that the federal German government refuses to act as a backer. What would the federal government actually do if one of the states entered a bankruptcy proceeding?

 

[Coriolanus]

What would the federal government actually do if one of the states entered a bankruptcy proceeding?

Suggest a temporary exit. Obviously.