This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Munchau: "The Eurozone As We Know It Is Destroyed"
Despite the euphoria in global equity markets, The FT's Wolfgang Munchau - once one of the keenest euro enthusiasts - warns regime change is coming in Europe. The actions of the creditors has "destroyed the eurozone as we know it and demolished the idea of a monetary union as a step towards a democratic political union," Munchau exclaims, fearing they have "demoted the eurozone into a toxic fixed exchange-rate system, with a shared single currency, run in the interests of Germany, held together by the threat of absolute destitution for those who challenge the prevailing order." He concludes rather ominously, "we will soon be asking ourselves whether this new eurozone, in which the strong push around the weak, can be sustainable."
As The FT reports, the best thing that can be said of the weekend is the brutal honesty of those perpetrating this regime change...
In doing so they reverted to the nationalist European power struggles of the 19th and early 20th century. They demoted the eurozone into a toxic fixed exchange-rate system, with a shared single currency, run in the interests of Germany, held together by the threat of absolute destitution for those who challenge the prevailing order.
But it was not just the brutality that stood out, nor even the total capitulation of Greece. The material shift is that Germany has formally proposed an exit mechanism. On Saturday, Wolfgang Schäuble, finance minister, insisted on a time-limited exit — a “timeout” as he called it. I have heard quite a few crazy proposals in my time, and this one is right up there. A member state pushed for the expulsion of another. This was the real coup over the weekend: regime change in the eurozone.
The fact that a formal Grexit may have been avoided for the moment is immaterial. Grexit will be back on the table when you have the slightest political accident — and there are still many things that could go wrong, both in Greece and in other eurozone parliaments. Any other country that in future might challenge German economic orthodoxy will face similar problems.
The implications for the rest of the eurozone are at least as troubling...
We will soon be asking ourselves whether this new eurozone, in which the strong push around the weak, can be sustainable. Previously, the strongest argument against any forecasts of break-up has been the strong political commitment of all its members. If you ask Italians why they are in the eurozone, few have ever pointed to the economic benefits. They wanted to be part of the most ambitious project of European integration undertaken so far.
But if you take away the political aspiration, you may end up with a different judgment. From a pure economic point of view, we know that the euro has worked well for Germany. It worked moderately well for The Netherlands and Austria, although it produced quite a degree of financial instability in both.
But for Italy, it has been an unmitigated economic disaster.
The euro has not worked out for Finland either. While the country is considered the world champion of structural reforms, its economy has slumped ever since Nokia lost the plot as the world’s erstwhile premier mobile phone maker. France has performed relatively well during the euro’s early years But it, too, is now running persistent current account deficits. It is not only Greece where the euro is not optimal.
In such a system, someone, somewhere, will want to leave sometime. And the strong political commitment to save it will no longer be there either.
The FT columnist Wolfgang Munchau deserves some credibility... (as detailed in 'Guilty Men')
For many years he was one of the keenest enthusiasts for the single currency. As late as September 2006 he declared: I expect that Eurozone to be exceptionally stable in the long run... make no mistake, the Eurozone is here to stay
Four years later, Munchau had performed his acrobatics. ‘Whichever scenario you choose,” wrote the Financial Times columnist in March last year, “the Euro is going to be weak.”
And now, he is full euroskeptic...Such willingness to diverge from status quo thinking and candour has been all too rare among political and economic writers...
"A few things that many of us took for granted, and that some of us believed in, ended in a single weekend."
»
- 32571 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Yep
The implications for the rest of the eurozone are at least as troubling...
That's an understatement!
Menchau becoming a recent Eurosckeptic is not that remarkable.
Let's admire the thinking of Euroskeptics who knew it was a bad idea 15 years ago.
They got their pound of flesh in the end.
A kidney.
The problem with the euro is the huge divergences with the various current account balances that various members run. Germany has a huge surplus ($220bn), Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Poland all run large deficits.
With no FX mechanism to self regulate competitive pricing and no fiscal union with which to redistribute tax revenues, the eurozone system generates large fiscal holes in countries with negative current account balances and large fiscal surpluses in countries with positive current account balances.
If the euro is to survive one of the following solutions must be adopted.
1). Fiscal Union
2). Close the current account gaps between the various member states, current accounts are zero sum, and Germany is operating a huge export balance. Literally sucking the money out of their neighbours. This is unsustainable.
3). Countries that do run large positive current account balances need to continually recapitalise their neighbours/trade partners to fill the fiscal deficits created by the biased trade flows.
1). Fiscal Union seems highly unlikely and would take generations to implement.
2). Germany is unlikely to curb their vast export balance as they see this as confirmation of their own superiority complex.
3). The only viable solution for the eurozone, is for German companies to build factories in the EZ periphery. Germans MUST execute vast foreign investment, sending capital away from Germany (where is does nothing but chase down yields) and into the EZ periphery. Germany should not be giving loans to Greece, Germany should be building German owned factories in Greece. Factories that are German owned but who will pay Greek taxes, and export Greek goods.
With the system in it's current format all capital flows out of the periphery and into the core and the periphery countries (absent a central bank) have no means of financing their structural current account deficits.
Eurozone countries with negative current accounts are being hollowed out by the monetary union.
This crisis is only just beginning. It will only grow more and more acute over time. The entire european financial system is deeply flawed. Everyone can see this now.
Thank God, the UK did not join the euro because our current account is a whooping $100 bn deficit. We need the BoE and GBP as we must finance our current account with currency exports.
If we lose Sterling, we lose our ability to finance our current account a fact that seems to have been entirely overlooked by France, Spain, Italy, Greece, et al as they were blinded by the stimulative effects of German interest rates.
As if Germany trying to take over Europe only began with the Eurozone....
Only difference is now they are using banks instead of tanks.
... and wheelchairs, when manned by a die-hard anti-democrat like Schaeuble, can be deadlier than the deadliest German tanks. And without all the visible bloodshed that only makes for bad press.
In case you didn't notice, since Lehmans many nations have been suffering, and they are destroying it all for a very real reason I assure you...
http://galeinnes.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-3-profiteers.html
... I can imagine Eurozone "evening news" beginning with "Good Evening ..." (in their own language, of course), and proceeds why it isn't ...
since not a single country in the EU is doing well managing ressources :
no power for germany who count on buy from france with their nuclear plants that are falling appart quietly, while they polute with coal... funny germans
not single investment to keep structural rail servicing in france while they have open free rail market... lol
etc....
list is fucking huge, so how you want dozens countries to adjust, focus and unison while by themselves they are just fucking unable to run....
uk zero hour job to remove unemployment list.... france 90months raising unemployment, 4€/hour german salary...
you can give a turn of presidency, ~ 5 years.... but at the end of the 2nd mandat,
the only thing i'm sure about, i will have left europe definitivly screwing all i can before moving before this will be a kinda mix of sparta & 3rd reich
Doctor Fu Manchu in the house ladies and gentlemen....
With Kali on the Dharma wheel of steel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4KuB8CVS8c
The Eurozone was never going to work. It was a construct of greedy oligarchs, who pitched it as a way to expand intra-zone commerce, but saw another way to extract value from currency users and to create an entity that risky losses could be dumped on. An uber-state, but lacking the political integration that would have been required to give it a chance to succeed.
It fails a simple, basic principle called the tragedy of the commons. A common resource was created in this instance, the Euro and its Central Bank, and this resource has been plundered by those with the wealth and power to do so.
Kill the damn thing, before it results in a shooting war. Then get about the business of destroying all central banks and the evil incentives of fractional reserve banking.
Fuck the EU! For once, even this neocon whore Nuland was right, though in a very different aspect than she meant it.
Schaeuble may not wear a swastika. But he damn sure acts like a Nazi. He could have made a stellar career under Hitler as well.
i think Adolf (as he was not very fond of bankers) would be in utter disgust and conside his mindset inhumane. Except if by stellar you mean he would light him up.
What did Schäuble do wrong? He, as much as anyone, was in a no win situation. People don't like it when you stand up for yourself but that is what he did, in respect to Germany. He's not from Greece or France or Italy. He's from Germany. Don't get me wrong thinking that I admire the guy in any way shape or form but what he did seems like nothing compared to the previous and current Greek governments who were the ones who put Greece in this situation. They signed on the dotted line and sold out their people, the Greeks. Schäuble did no such thing to the Greeks.
If all politicians would behave that way the world would make a lot more sense.
Germany should build some of the imaginary Greco-Roman architectural marvels printed on the Euro notes.
They could eschew modern methods, and thereby soak up a lot of youth unemployment in the periphery, then bring tourist income for centuries and millenia to come.
Economic structures in Greece and the new plan condemn this country to a future as a "History Disneyland" within the Eurozone. No hope for the young and humiliation for the old. That's all.
Poland is not in the EuroZone
They got their kidney...
and the Greeks forgot the lesson I learned in 7th grade shop class: just remember to keep your nuts out of the vise.
Yeah, but it's sure damn profitable if you can instead coax some poor ignorant sap to stick his nuts in the vice. To bad this visual was not used in the decision to join the euro so the consequences could be easily grasped.
Then again, people do seem to be often repulsed by reality. Who knows if any of this could have been prevented but it is certainly a personal lesson what results when socialism, fraud and power seeking psychopaths collide in a perfect storm.
Miffed
Nuts in a vice?? What does Lindsay Graham have to do with Greece??
Oh, I forgot, he likes to be on the receiving end, Greek style.
You mean bankrupt people printing more debt to give more money to already bankrupt people who cannot repay it back in the first place because they are bankrupt is not right?
I am so grateful that a FT journo finally got it!
The EU is so successful that we should do the same worldwide and create a one world government with one currency.
And one gigantic private Bank to print all of our money so we don't need to concern ourselves with where the money comes from.
For a while anyhow.
Get over yourself, Wolfgang--who gives a fuck what you think? Defending the actions of the GREEKS is unconscionable. Were the GREEKS good citizens of the EU, you stupid fuck???
Firstly the EU was a stupid idea. Second it doesn't matter any more, the rubicon was crossed years ago and things happen for a reason, not necessarily because they planned it. Now go get the popcorn, watch the dominoes fall on one another since that's how they accidentally built it and get some bitcoin. Once this is done, there won't be any banks or debt or old capital worth mentioning. Once this gets rolling, the math behind this becomes an unstoppable beast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqb-TjYgvq4
International Socialism must be destroyed
Please. The eurozone is not different from yesterday, a brutal tyranny run by bankster puppets.
Thats correct. Thats why half of Europe left for the US over the last 150 years to get away from it.
Brought it with them, like Kalifornians going to Texas.
More contagious than the black death, with similar outcomes.
You ought to see the Californication of Nevada.
they left the hidden theft system to usa because it is an open fraud space... usa not worth any better than europe, it's the same, don't fool yourself.
The EU devil was always in the details, we are just seeing the devil over the weekend.
Not only that, today may be Hegel's finest hour.
I have absolutely no doubt that this is the tool forged to create the fiscal union.
Look at this quote from Hollande in the MSM today,
Setting up the "cradle of democracy" was pure genius. The fact that it's dead broke from socialism combined with banksterism was the icing on the cake.
Hollande, now there's a real hero of the people, after all, his big tax increase certainly improved the French economy......
Hollande will cave after a few weeks of fist pounding. He will bring out his version of Y-Anus to rally the troops. In the end, they will get their Goldman suitcases and the French will be sold down zee river.
FUNNY!!!!!
That Greece is "the heart of Europe" is another utterly fabricated meme. They are part of the Levant, the antithesis of western Europe. What tripe!
Believe me, when a French, English, Spanish, etc. person think about their roots, the last thing they identify with is a fucking Greek!
The only thing that has changed is the story they are selling today. Anyone who thinks that any of this stuff has anything to do with what the people want or vote for or that is says in some document is living in a dream land. They lie and they create disinformation to seize and maintain control. That is the game. http://www.thetruthaboutthelaw.com/non-linear-disinformation-makes-it-im...
The position on NPR I heard this morning was that "Europe accepted Greece's proposal". There is no way you could honestly and sincerely make that statement.
"Okay, we'll play dead now."
National Propaganda Radio...owned by Hasbara Inc.
Lies are truth!
If the price of a single currency is enslavement of part of its citizen-members, then yes, the euro should - indeed must - be destroyed.
Yes Greece had no choice but to spend beyond its means for decades and make promises to people it can't keep. It's a good thing that this is only happening in Greece...
...and that is the laughable thing about all of this.
The banks are allowed to lie about their solvency.
The governments are allowed to lie about everything.
The people are expected to except it all as the God's truth.
Somebody try to tell me it's different.
Uh huh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VFCQNdgDHE
It is difficult to see how the Germans and the Greeks etal can use the same currency. Next up: Italy, Spain or Portugal.
The sin was letting the Greeks into the system from the beginning. Their banks lent them billions which cannot be paid back. So the banks now own the Greek islands. Yea, this will work out, no problem.
Coming to the USA soon.
sschu
Wait till France...............................is in the frame!
The creation of the EU was really an accident...the whole thing was made by one guy basically...Jean Monnet.
It's original beauty started in its simplicity: "no more fighting between France and Germany over coal and Steel."
So he created a "coal and steel Union" and everything started from there.
"And then people got greedy" is the way I see it.
Sure looks like an EPIC Grand Finale shaping up between France and Germany here.
Kinda a Thriller in Manila for Economists and "political theorists."
Make no mistake: liquidity is drying up REAL fast over there.
"Poor-old-Schenko" of Ukraine is laughing his balls off right now. He's the only one over there who has access to dollar funding right now.
AND THOSE ARE VERY VALUABLE DOLARES RIGHT NOW.
One interesting side note that friggin CLOWNIE might consider here when he's not playing golf actually is to start minting real copper pennies.
The cash premium on that Honest Abe could be MASSIVE right now and could bring in a FORTUNE for the Treasury Department.
Just lift the name and drive a new country under it.
dup
Greece as we knew it is also destroyed
OMG - you mean the strong want to tell the weak what to do?
How can that be possible? Since when did the world start letting the strong push around the weak?
How fucking insightful - I guess the next thing you will say is water makes you wet.
Ya but...
The strong invited the weak to the party and are now feeding on them.
If you are a lamb and a pack of wolves invite you over to play naked twister in gravy - and you accept the invitation - should you be surprised when you end up being eaten?
Never ever accept an invitation from a vampire.
It goes quadruple for one from a vampire squid.
...only difference to before is that hypokricia has become apparent to more citizens
Francois Hollande has offically shat his knickers.
Vichy 2.0
@PB
Wonder what Assetts Germany are eyeing up in...............................FRANCE!
Germans have learned that they can roll into France quite easily. The Greek bullshit will just make it look like it was necesssary. Hey, who the fuck will oppose?
Good point!
Maybe all of the EU leaders should attend a German film festival in a French theater.
You inglorious bastard!
Watch the rise of nationalism throughout Europe.
Hey, it's not like WWIII is gonna start itself!
jajjajajjajajja!!! That's the best point made all day +10000000000000......
And all the Nationalists will be asking for ...................................."TIME OUT"
http://albainternazionale.blogspot.it/2015/07/le-radici-del-cicap-e-le-c...
So he means facts do in the end trump strong political commitment? Inconceivbable!
Yeah, I am a full skeptic since day one and I still don't get any credit.
Put the deeply cutural differenence asid, how on earth is possible to have layback spenders and hard working savers to live in harmony under the same roof???!!!! Dream the fuck on.
FT is a joke.
The Eurozone as he knows it never existed. This guy, along with all the other sheep at the FT, has been dreaming all along.
BADDDDDDDD money
Driving out GOOOOOOOOOD debt.
"Ruh-roh shaggy."
This entire farce reminds me of Versailles ca 1920 where the harsh terms afforded Germany created a monster named Adolph hitler. More of these ruthless Germans may foster fascism and radicalism in many of the Southern European neighbors..European .History will look at 2015 gravely.
Most historical records will have been burned ala The Memory Hole.
The good news is, the US can now remove all military installations from Europe. Because, what's the point? Surely their banks can defend themselves.
USA OUT OF EURASIA (TM)
This is a really good point actually.
"Forward deploy to Crete and Ukraine...have them do all the basing work."
All transactions in dollars.
"Join the Party if you don't want to be a fucking wussie anymore EUROLANDER....
"We have always been at war with eurasia".
People like Munchau are simply foolish. The Germans are right- if the just create a pure transfer union, it would be Katy-Bar-The-Door as the countries race each other to see who could pile up the most debt and send it to the ECB.
http://www.kappit.com/img/pics/47714883eaecc_sm.jpg
What Otto (the "Matic") Hapsburg wanted all along, or just the Third Reich's revenge?
Al zu drakma ze blongz to uz! Gehts fer Spanien and Frankreich außerdem - bwahahahah!
So again and again Zh has FAILED big time in it's "predictions" aka putin regime lies propaganda about crashing EU & EURO zone :D
Ha ha ha in your face ZH :D
Not big on explaining what the hell you mean at all, eh? You have the FT saying this is the "crashing" of the EURO...not ZH...today!!! And a whole load of others including the NYT, old man William Hague, and op-eds out of almost all the business press asking "isn't this going to destroy the EU eventually?"...but in your tiny twerpy mind none of that is happening. You're such a joke.
So Greece is holding another Referendum with the following choices:-
Ein) Do you wish to become part of the German Empire and in doing so change your name to, Greaceball?
Oder Zwei) Round up ALL the Generals, Bankers, Politicians, Oligarchs and other assorted Whores who have fisted you for decades, shunt them onto one of the small islands to fend for themselves and thereby wrestle back Sovereignty.
FT says "brutal creditors have demolished the eurozone project"?! I smell a rat...
Replace "creditors" with "predators".
One word describes the European Union: Unelected.
For it was the foundation of America, escaping from the European monarchies, that formed a government that would elect its leaders and make them responsible to the people (now a principle being eroded). Not so in a Europe that traversed socialism, tyranny and, now, a union invented and operated by the banking cartel.
One man’s story underlies the strategy: Joseph Retinger.
“Joseph Retinger, Polish ex-fascist who became a British agent, at the request of MI6… founded the European League for Economic Cooperation, of which he became Secretary-General. In that function, he must be considered the father of the Euro. After that, he directed the European Movement and created the Bilderberg Club.”
All along, from Hitler’s Germany to the current Troika, the banking cartel has been the driver, intending to form a political United States of Europe as a puzzle piece for world government. Even though these bankers were in league with the Communists, they used the threat of Communism against European nations to form a European Union ostensibly against the USSR. All along, the people never had a voice. In addition to Retinger, here are a few banker puppets with roles in formation and/or operation of the EU.
“Walter Hallstein, a former senior civil servant for the German government, drew up Hitler’s project for Federal Europe. This called for the destruction of the European states and the federation of the populations, according to ethnic background, around the Aryan Reich. The ensemble would have been submitted to a non-elected dictatorship, controlled by Berlin. At the Liberation, he began organising his project with the help of the Anglo-Saxons, and in 1958, became the first President of the European Commission.”
“Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, is Goldman-Sachs’ ex-vice-President for Europe. He hid from the European Parliament his rôle in the embezzlement operated by the bank for the account of the Greek government, although the facts are attested by the bank’s own documents.”
“Jean-Claude Juncker expressed anger about the Greek referendum, which he qualified as 'treason." M. Juncker had been obliged to resign his position as Prime Minister of Luxembourg after it was revealed that he belonged to the Atlantic Alliance spy network Gladio. One year later, he became President of the European Commission.”
Thierry Meyssan of Voltaire Network, who describes the players above, in his recent article Beyond the Greek Debt, “observes the international campaign against Greece leaving the Euro zone. He shines a light on the historic project of the European Union and the Euro, as they were formulated in 1946 by Churchill and Truman, and concludes that in the end, Greece is trapped by the international geopolitical environment and not by its economic situation.”
Here is an excerpt of Meyssan’s article:
[T]he fact of belonging to the Eurozone does not guarantee economic performance. If we refer to the International Monetary Fund’s list for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), only one member state of the Union is amongst the world’s top ten : the fiscal paradise of Luxembourg. France only figures in 25th position out of 193.
The growth of the European Union was 1,2 % in 2014, which places it in 173rd place - which is to say one of the world’s worst results (the world average is 2,2 %).
We are obliged to note that belonging to the Union and using the Euro are no guarantees for success. So if the European elites support this “project,” it’s because it is profitable for them. Indeed, by creating a single market, then a single money, the Unionists have re-shuffled the deck. As from now, the differences are no longer between the member states, but between the social classes, which have become uniform at the European scale. That is why the richer classes defend the Union, while the poorer hope for a return to their member states.
The nonsense about the Union and the Euro
…The Union was conceived by the Anglo-Saxons, with a few ex-Nazis, against the USSR. It supports the Ukrainian government today, Nazis included, and has declared economic war on Russia by masking it with the title of “sanctions.”
As its name does not inform you, the Union was not created in order to unify the European continent, but to divide it, and to definitively invalidate Russia. This is what Charles De Gaulle denounced when he pled for a Europe which would stretch from “Brest to Vladivostock.”
http://www.voltairenet.org/article188082.html
We have elections every 4 years where we vote in our representatives in EU parliament. There are different candidates with different programs, they have discussions in TV, radio, etc. Than people vote and that is how we elect EU. So what the f**k is you mean by “European Union: Unelected”
The euro parliament has as much power as an American vice President , none.
The unelected(by the serfs) executive has all the power.
I hope they don't have as much power as Dick Cheney!
Dow is nearly @ 18K. Janet Yellen has the digital money ledger typing in overdrive.
No Wallstreet glitch expected today. /lol
The problem was too much debt and that was primarily the fault of Greece. To solve the problem, put Greece and its creditors through bankruptcy proceedings, to liquidate posititions and get on with life.
You are right of course,,, But,,, when the bankers like GS and Deutsche Bank come to you with smiling faces and false books showing how you are eligible for this or that loan, the whole idea being to enslave you, they should be sued for fraud and the former government scoundrels should be sued for negligence.
Years ago I was told by realtors and banks I was eligible for a ridiculous mortgage. It didn't require a mathematician to figure out they were wrong and were just trying to squeeze me. Responsible me said no.
Morality aside, I'm not sure that was the correct position to take, financially, as I watch many responsible people, savers, producers being burned by the banks and their fellow fraudulent citizens laughing all the way to the bank. The nation has turned into a Ferengi society where anything goes and the more fraudulent are rewarded.
+100
This aint over.
All the countries' governments have to approve this so called deal including Greece.
Will Greece back the traitor now that the terms are known?
End of this week will see a resurgence in bullshit.
Meanwhile who will go hungry and who will dine well?
Of course they will back the agreement! They are too fucking in love with the Euro for some strange reason. Even though they will now be economic slaves to their creditors and lose all national sovereignty, they will still beg to stay in the Euro whatever the cost.
Hope to God I am wrong, but history stands behind me.
Have you seen the astonishing photos of Kissinger and other NWO elites posing with the Annunaki? Quite a eye opener to see who is really calling the shots!
http://revelation12.ca/?p=2089
Great spray and pray opportunity missed.
We now know the reason for the scowl on Tsipras face when Nigel Farage made his Greece choosing democracy speech.
Tsipras had already sold out and Farage was being foolish. He of all people should have known better!
Firage wasn't saying any of that for Tsipras's sake...it was for the Greek peoples' sake to some degree, but even more so just a "plot device" you might say. It was another opportunity for him to rub the noses of the EURO elites in their own steaming piles of fresh poo they seem to squirt out so consistently anymore. A bad gas of idea diahrea the Europhile's have I think.
He may or may not have "known better". It was beside the point. And it doesn't even matter as he could only pretend to impress up Tsipras what he should do...and didn't claim that was what Tsipras was going to do. In the end, what happened when Tsipras chose to grovel to the ECB heads proved the point Firage was making anyway.
Is the profanity really necessary?
Profanity helps a great deal when you have nothing to say.....
No credit for realizing they were wrong and publicly stating so I take it?
Tourette's perhaps?
Maybe the German cupboard is more bare than we've been led to believe?
Of course the Krauts will never admit to be wrong but even in that there is a hierarchy. And when it comes to admitting their own faults, saving face trumps everything else when it comes to Germans and Germany.
I think the German cupboard is bare and that Germany hasn't actually got the means to bailout Greece.
Tsipras got a photo of his family, with some guns and flowers. And a visit from a few guys that told him; we're the real decision makers. Now agree and fuck off. The system is way to unstabel to deal with a Grexit, and with systemic risk, the decision makers come in and convince you to 'do the right thing'. China is going down, when Europe goes down at the same time, party is over.
When was the eurozone anything but a fixed exchange rate zone, created for Germany's benefit.
Gotta hand it to the Germans, though. they're smart. Hitler tried to conquer Europe with Panzers,didn't work. So they come back with the euro.
The EU isn't "pushing around the weak", they are kicking the deadbeat in the ass.
"the threat of absolute destitution"
AahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Right, because Greece was the very model of a modern first-world "capitalist" economic miracle success-story until that eeeeeevil eurozone showed up, with such strong and solid fundamentals, a culture of thrift, hard work, self-reliance, respect for property rights and contracts and the rule of law, healthy republican democracy, civic moderation, and a large and invested entrepreneurial class.
The Germans have revealed that contrary to all expectations and thousands of years of evidence, they are in fact the masters of topical humor.
It's Germany's fault if the perpetually deadbeat tourist trap known as Greece is destitute again, as it has always been since the Eastern Roman Empire declined! Priceless!
You just know Munchau is staring at a chart of Greek GDP while typing that!
This is at the very heart of the problem for Greece.
At least when they were not part of the EU, they had no one else to blame.
They could vote for more or less govt. as they saw fit.
Now they have no choice.
Neither does any other EU nation, apparently.