Germany & Europe

[andyofborg]

This is too far. Way too far. It's a mess.

 

it's undoubtably a mess but crying over it is less important than resolving it.

 

and that's something which the eu leaders have singularly failed to do. for all his other faults gordon brown took decisive action at the start of this whole crisis which stabilised the british banks and by and large it seems to have worked. if the eu leaders had done the same then things now might be different.

 

for the euro to survive then a degree of mutual cooperation is going to be needed and that means the stronger economies are going to have to support the weaker ones and they are going to have to mutualise the debt through eurobonds which will mean controls on borrowing and as a result how much countries can spend.

 

i don't think there is a way to unwind the euro which wont take the world economy with it so it has to survive.

[mossdog]

Heres an article from De Speigel

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/how-germany-s-eu-partners-are-using-blackmail-in-the-euro-crisis-a-837768.html

 

I wouldnt be surprised if Germany left the Euro personally. Merkel is in a no win position and her tax payers are fed up bailing banks. Whether they (the tax payers) realise that they are actually bailing their own banks when she bails the PIGS banks who knows. Im going to start reading more of the German press to try to see what their MSM is saying.

The Germans cannot help themselves!.............the current 4th Reich strategy is part of their makeup,domination of the sunbeds to eventual superstate control is all they know!...............some of us have been around long enough to know the German makeup............we don't need textbook knowledge.

[I1L2T3]

it's undoubtably a mess but crying over it is less important than resolving it.

 

and that's something which the eu leaders have singularly failed to do. for all his other faults gordon brown took decisive action at the start of this whole crisis which stabilised the british banks and by and large it seems to have worked. if the eu leaders had done the same then things now might be different.

 

for the euro to survive then a degree of mutual cooperation is going to be needed and that means the stronger economies are going to have to support the weaker ones and they are going to have to mutualise the debt through eurobonds which will mean controls on borrowing and as a result how much countries can spend.

 

i don't think there is a way to unwind the euro which wont take the world economy with it so it has to survive.

 

The Euro cannot survive as it is. The point everybody misses is that Germany has grown strong at the expense of peripheral states. This has happened because the Euro was an effective devaluation compared to the DM. Other states experienced an upward revaluation and lost their competitiveness. Like I said earlier Germany has sucked the life out of the periphery.

 

Now having been the recipient of hundreds of billions of Euro in extra trade they act all hurt at the thought of having to help the other states they damaged in that process. It's like feeding a weak man poison then pretending to be a good samaritan when you help him, and expecting everybody to love you for it.

 

For states to re-gain their inherent competitiveness they need to be out of the Euro with their own currency, with floating exchange rates. Germany needs an upward revaluation of the currency it uses to correctly reflect its economic strength. The alternative is a German economy growing ever strong and ever more dominant.

 

I don't think the Euro, in its current form, can die soon enough.

[erebus]

I love how the ignorant gobble up the propaganda like chicken feed, and its all Germany and Europe is it? Well its not Germany, or Europe as the people of Europe including Germany do not have a say it it at all. Its all about the banks stupid! Loaning someone money with a promise that it will be paid back is a risk, or as some might put it as BETTING. But betting with what you might ask, the banks own money??? Well NO! The banks are a very complex and ingenious bunch of crooks. They dream up FINANCIAL PRODUCTS, all geared to make money. For clients? No! They are devised not to make money for clients/savers, and that is the point. They con politicians, ordinary people, everyone in the rush to line their own pockets. They are free of all regulation as are responsible and therefore self-regulating, so the foxes are now responsible for looking after the chickens. We are the chickens, and guess what? We have been conned, the country that is the UK is in serious debt, but the banks are in this game for the bigger picture, and all countries bar a few are also now in debt thanks to the banks. All the banks are connected, and all are in debt, they are technically bankrupt.

 

How have these scheming robbers done this? Through threatening the politicians that if they do not make everyone in the country pay the banks forever, then they will close all banks. That is all money transaction stop immediately, so no cash in machines, no wages being paid, no bills or companies trading, a complete overnight halt to any economy. This would cause riots, and with the police also unwaged frightens the rich, who the politicians always are brown nosing, if not like the present lot actually either are the rich, or connected to.

 

Thanks to such a threat the politicians, were persuaded to come on board, they are then offered bribes, and hand-outs in all countries to slacken regulations and give the banks a free hand to run not just individual countries, but hopefully all countries under the pretext of sorting the financial situation out, that they created to begin with. Foxes and chickens????

 

The point is to make every country, and thus every person subservient to the banks through debt. Debt the country owes to the private banks that work for profit, and individually, those that have to borrow. Everyone directly and indirectly now works for the banks who get all the tax money from all you buy and pay through wages and goods.

 

The biggest joke is that the depression will last a decade at least, so the plebs, that is you, get used to the idea there is nothing anyone can do, but sink and accept the situation. Wages fall or stay static, as corporations raise prices of food, power and fuel sinking everyone everywhere further into the mire of variations of poverty. Get used to it, its an on-going long term situation, where politicians will blame the euro, China, the unemployed, foreigners, education system, single mothers, and more for the decline. Why??? Because they are all in the pockets of the banks that own everything, and control everything, and if you decide to riot or complain, then the private sector will build the prisons, provide security, that your taxes pay for, creaming off every drop they can. So get used to the growing job market in private security, where the employed smash the rest of us with tear gas, batons, water cannon, tear gas and live rounds. Welcome to YOUR future chickens!

 

The idea was and always will be a world run by the banks directly or indirectly through corporations, with democratically elected Politian’s on the pay role, with the media spouting entertainment and trash as well as meaningful lies, to keep the unwashed amused while their lives slowly deteriorate.

[I1L2T3]

I love how the ignorant gobble up the propaganda like chicken feed, and its all Germany and Europe is it? Well its not Germany, or Europe as the people of Europe including Germany do not have a say it it at all. Its all about the banks stupid! Loaning someone money with a promise that it will be paid back is a risk, or as some might put it as BETTING. But betting with what you might ask, the banks own money??? Well NO! The banks are a very complex and ingenious bunch of crooks. They dream up FINANCIAL PRODUCTS, all geared to make money. For clients? No! They are devised not to make money for clients/savers, and that is the point. They con politicians, ordinary people, everyone in the rush to line their own pockets. They are free of all regulation as are responsible and therefore self-regulating, so the foxes are now responsible for looking after the chickens. We are the chickens, and guess what? We have been conned, the country that is the UK is in serious debt, but the banks are in this game for the bigger picture, and all countries bar a few are also now in debt thanks to the banks. All the banks are connected, and all are in debt, they are technically bankrupt.

 

How have these scheming robbers done this? Through threatening the politicians that if they do not make everyone in the country pay the banks forever, then they will close all banks. That is all money transaction stop immediately, so no cash in machines, no wages being paid, no bills or companies trading, a complete overnight halt to any economy. This would cause riots, and with the police also unwaged frightens the rich, who the politicians always are brown nosing, if not like the present lot actually either are the rich, or connected to.

 

Thanks to such a threat the politicians, were persuaded to come on board, they are then offered bribes, and hand-outs in all countries to slacken regulations and give the banks a free hand to run not just individual countries, but hopefully all countries under the pretext of sorting the financial situation out, that they created to begin with. Foxes and chickens????

 

The point is to make every country, and thus every person subservient to the banks through debt. Debt the country owes to the private banks that work for profit, and individually, those that have to borrow. Everyone directly and indirectly now works for the banks who get all the tax money from all you buy and pay through wages and goods.

 

The biggest joke is that the depression will last a decade at least, so the plebs, that is you, get used to the idea there is nothing anyone can do, but sink and accept the situation. Wages fall or stay static, as corporations raise prices of food, power and fuel sinking everyone everywhere further into the mire of variations of poverty. Get used to it, its an on-going long term situation, where politicians will blame the euro, China, the unemployed, foreigners, education system, single mothers, and more for the decline. Why??? Because they are all in the pockets of the banks that own everything, and control everything, and if you decide to riot or complain, then the private sector will build the prisons, provide security, that your taxes pay for, creaming off every drop they can. So get used to the growing job market in private security, where the employed smash the rest of us with tear gas, batons, water cannon, tear gas and live rounds. Welcome to YOUR future chickens!

 

The idea was and always will be a world run by the banks directly or indirectly through corporations, with democratically elected Politian’s on the pay role, with the media spouting entertainment and trash as well as meaningful lies, to keep the unwashed amused while their lives slowly deteriorate.

 

I started this thread to discuss specifically about Germany and Europe rather than as a genral discussion about the global crisis, of which the current Euro crisis is obviously a big part. But it's worth expanding the discussion.

 

Absolutely this whole thing is fundamentally a banking crisis. You're right that everybody needs to fully understand that. Until that is understood none of this will ever be solved.

 

Look at Spain, it's mental that a country with 25% adult unemployment, 50% youth unemployment has just been able to borrow 100bn Euro just to give straight to its banks. Not one cent of that goes to citizens. Not one cent will be used to promote business, manufacturing or get people into work. Just like Greece, in another few months there will be another bailout. Then another. And Spain will slide into semi-anarchy just like Greece.

 

The Euro is very dangerous. They talk about moving to a common banking system without even acknowledging that the Euro has already made it very easy for credit to flow between banks within the Eurozone. It made it very easy for credit to flow to Spain, ireland, Greece, Italy. The artificially low base rates and glut of available credit made it easy to borrow. It caused housing booms in Ireland and Spain. It allowed credit to flow into the wrong sectors and the wrong locations. And although the credit was allowed to flow freely it was used to create fixed assets that could be moved - trillions of Euro worth of unneeded white elephant property all over the Eurozone. The unnatural level of industrial strength enjoyed by Germany because it was using a devalued currency, and contrasting resulting weakness and uncompetiveness of corresponding industries in the periphery meant that the credit sloshing freely around the Eurozone just found its way into any bad investment going.

 

It's a total mess. The Euro has to die.

[Jag82]

Germany has enjoyed economic success because of the Euro. It has 16 other client states for its exports, the cost of which is driven down by Germany enjoying use of a currency that is valued way below what a sovereign German currency would be. It also enjoys huge export benefits outside of the Eurozone because of the low valued currency it gets to use.

 

Germany has sucked the economic life out of the periphary of Europe and damaged other countries at the core. And now those countries have no choice (seemingly) but to go cap in hand to the country that has damaged them to begin with.

 

So, Germany gets its superstate. How does it keep the others in line if economic, fiscal, political measures don't work? What if Russia becomes more bullish if it feels threatened by the superstate? I think Germany might decide it needs a bigger army. And it has all the manufacturing capacity and technology to build one.

 

IMO this is a very dangerous moment for Europe.

 

Germany (West Germany at the time) was part of the 'inner six'

 

There are 27 States in the EU most of them joining after Germany.

 

There are 17 States in the EuroZone (presumably the client States that you allude to)

 

I am not aware of Gemany forcing any State to join either the EU or the EuroZone, perhaps you would like to provide your definition of a client State.

 

The exchange rate is favourable to Germany in terms of Exports however imported raw materials become more expensive at the same time.

 

Germany's exports are guaranteed access to markets due to the GATT/WTO agreements irrespective of the EU.

[I1L2T3]

Germany (West Germany at the time) was part of the 'inner six'

 

There are 27 States in the EU most of them joining after Germany.

 

There are 17 States in the EuroZone (presumably the client States that you allude to)

 

I am not aware of Gemany forcing any State to join either the EU or the EuroZone, perhaps you would like to provide your definition of a client State.

 

The exchange rate is favourable to Germany in terms of Exports however imported raw materials become more expensive at the same time.

 

Germany's exports are guaranteed access to markets due to the GATT/WTO agreements irrespective of the EU.

 

By client states I mean states that are subservient to Germany and very active markets for German exports, and also prime targets for surplus German savings. If raw materials can be sourced from within the Eurozone they are technically bought using cheap (for Germany) Euro with no exchange rate to be concerned about.

 

There is nothing in this any more for peripheral and smaller states.

[HeadingNorth]

Germany as it stands is not the result of diverse nations being thrown together. It is the result of a consensual unification of German-speaking principalities, states, city states, bishoprics etc... brought together in a formal unification process that took place over decades and completed over 140 years ago.

 

It wasn't finally completed until round about 1940 .. and it didn't last long when it was, given that the government which finished the job did so by causing world war and massacring untold millions of innocent people.

[I1L2T3]

It wasn't finally completed until round about 1940 .. and it didn't last long when it was, given that the government which finished the job did so by causing world war and massacring untold millions of innocent people.

 

If you want to go down that route of argument it was never completed. Volga Germans, Swiss Germans etc.. were never integrated into the Reich.

 

The Austrian problem (dualism issue) was not even really solved in 1938 either.

 

The recognised date when Germany became a full state is 1871.

[callippo]

- By 1960s Europe is completely at peace, basically a giant politically unified superstate with Germany at the core, calling all the shots

 

hey sounds great, except it would have been a fascist dictatorship, no different from the Communist ones that made life a hell on earth for half of Europe's inhabitants in the 1960s.