We could list more measures to hold the eurozone together. These are just a taster, yet it is already clear most of them would be quite beyond any policymakers attempting a last-ditch effort to save the euro. That gives some idea of the impossibility of the task, and the difficulties facing the continent in the new year.

Italy is too big to bail.

RIP - The Euro

1993 - 2012

Second, the old world promises it will drop the sniffiness towards corporate takeovers from Asia.

Unfortunately it won't happen. Throughoiut Europe, including the UK, ther is a residual mix of racism and sticking their fingers in the ears when it comes to the economic and financial power of Asia.

Did someone buy you a shoe-horn for Christmas because I don't think you needed one.

There's not really any relation between the undeniable and immense power of Asia and racism, nice though it is to parade one's impreccable credentials every now and then :)

Euroleaders are probably enjoying Christmas. Despots need holidays too.

Europe for the Europeans not the EU, a concept alien to most MEP's

I am not trying to parade any credentials I can assure you. I believe that there are elements of rwcism and racist attitudes among Europeans and European leadrs towards Asia and its rise - centred on their ability and right to get rich and influentila.

Anyopne is free to disagree with me of course. But I havemn't shoe hoprned racism in - I genuinely believe it to be a genuine phenomenon in this question.

The euro: happy new year? Fat chance

Fat chance indeed. Same conclusion but from a different angle. Wars, profits and money are tightly. Swiss franc is safe because Switzerland is bankers' own country. US$ and £ are OK because US and UK have brownie points of providing military forces for recent and past wars, and more than likely, the next few wars too. So, if the objective is more wars then Euro is going to get a rough ride.

Hmmm..

Most readers are probably ignorant of the fact that the real elephant in the room, the USA, needs it's debt ceiling raised again by the end of this month. It's burned through the extra $1.4trl agreed in August and now has to have it raised again, it's taken five months. Want to solve Europe's problem? Then hey, let's print money through the ECB like there's no tomorrow because it's worked so well for the USA hasn't it? Six trillion of extra public debt (since 2008) just to stay out of a deeper recession...for now..

And let's not get too smug in the UK, our debt versus GDP is the worst in Europe, second only to Japan as the worlds worst once you factor in personal debt and banking liabilities of the state owned banks..Our debt GDP is circa 460%, Greece is 350%, Italy 300%..oh and let's not forget that as our biggest trading partner if Europe sneezes we catch the flu, there's only so much recovery the UK can engineer by selling arms to places after kicking over a few hornets' nests..

What is awful about all this is that the average person, even the intelligent average person, doesn't understand it. How can a whole country just "decide" to borrow money? How can vast sums of money just, apparently, disappear? And, as for "quantitative easing" it makes you think I would help the economy if I forged some good bank notes in my cellar and sent every family in the land £1000 in a brown envelope.

Oh stop being so reasonable :) Yes you're right, but so what? Asia is prospering in spite of the Daily Mail? In which case, jolly well done them. or are you suggesting some sort of concerted effort to slow Asian development because Asians are brown (and not because economic blocs are acting as we'd expect)?

Sorry. It's my pre-New Year's resolution - annoy everyone on CIF by trying to get less het up. lol.

I am not suggesting there is a concerted effort no. The racism to which I refer is probably more of a sniffinesss and a refusal to take them seriously. We still hear that, "China and India are going to be big players" as if they weren't already. But I don't want to ovrplay it.

Well yes the EU leaders have let us down and very few political elites around EU member states have covered themselves in glory, but at least we can vote them out at the next election..... oh.

Well at least we have national democracies so we can influence how our government acts in the EU council...... unless you are Italian or Greek of course.

Well at least the MEPs and the comissioners have taken pay cuts in line with what they are inflicting upon the people of Europe...... haven't they?

SE26lad
27 December 2011 11:27PM
Response to SamWidges, 27 December 2011 11:13PM
I am not trying to parade any credentials I can assure you. I believe that there are elements of rwcism and racist attitudes among Europeans and European leadrs towards Asia and its rise - centred on their ability and right to get rich and influentila.

Anyopne is free to disagree with me of course. But I havemn't shoe hoprned racism in - I genuinely believe it to be a genuine phenomenon in this question.

You are free to believe what you want, or free to claim to believe things that projects the image of yourself that you want others to percieve in you. However, a bit of evidence for claims like that wouldnt go amiss if you want to have conversations with grown ups. Racist how? A belief that Asians are somehow inferior technically or in terms of organisational skills? It may have been true once, but the events of December 1941 put paid to that.

Throughoiut Europe, including the UK, ther is a residual mix of racism and sticking their fingers in the ears when it comes to the economic and financial power of Asia.

From my experience, I would say Brits and Europeans are more likely to talk up Asia and talk down their own economies. Britain is commonly referred to as being too insignificant to cope outside the EU. Suggest the same about Australia, Canada, Russia or India (all with smaller economies than our own) and you would, rightly, be treated with derision.

Erm, the article is wrong in relation to the franc being a safe haven, according to the Bloomberg correlated weighted currencies index it was flat in 2011 and the euro only lost 2%, hardly end of days. The yen performed best, up circa 4.3% year on year..Nearer to home Swedish krona performed best as an investment in 2011.

Given that the SNB are on a determined policy of devaluation (in order to promote Swiss exports) they'll continue to lower the value of the franc through 2012.

I am not trying to project any image of myself. I am stating what I think. Why on Earth would I bother to claim to believe something that I don't believe simply to create an image to strangers on the Internet? Are there actually people that do that? If so then they lead rather sad little lives.

However, a bit of evidence for claims like that wouldnt go amiss if you want to have conversations with grown ups.

And resorting to insults is a strong form of debate is it?

Racist how? A belief that Asians are somehow inferior technically or in terms of organisational skills? It may have been true once, but the events of December 1941 put paid to that.

Racist how? Well lets start with the fact that the CAP still stops poorer Asians from selling some agricultural products here - although this affects Africans far more than Asians. But also lets look at the fac t that have refused to change the voting blocks at the IMF and World Bank for this round - or that they deliberately ensured tha a European got the job of IMF Head - stating, "Perhaops next time round".

I would like to withdraw the word, "rac ism" and replace it with, "nationmal snobbery".

Apologies - I accept that racism was the incorrecty term. Although within that change I maintain my general point.

Well there you make a good point. We have this odd way of putting ourselves down and still believing we are better than others at the same time.

The euro: happy new year? Fat chance

Sounds like the Guardian has given up on the Euro holding out far sooner than it did for Gaddaffi.

Excellent article.

Well said!

Isn't Japan part of Asia and I think they've trading quite happily around the world without any hinderence from western snobbery.

But surely the ECB is finally doing exactly the same as our own Bank of England? Printing money to give to the banks in the desperate hope it will work? The difference being the Tories have been up to it for well over a year to artificially keep inflation down, a policy of course which George Osborne described previously as 'the last resort of a desperate government'.

If the EU is screwed then under and according to Osborne we are well and truly fucked.

our policymakers will have to come up with a common plan to take over bust banks and thoroughly stress-test others to show the world they are sound trading partners. Finally, there will need to be a series of long-range economic policies: an end to counterproductive austerity, a new mandate for the European Central Bank to encourage growth.

NO, HELLNO.

Greece will never become Germany. The model for Europe is by its very nature more decentralized, more judgement based on dialogue and relationships -- not more centralization and anonymity.

Listening to Tim Geithner of the US treasury? What does he know that the is not born of the blotted, brittle financial houses turned banks that outsource judgment?

It is time to realign financial houses with the real economies in Europe -- not vice versa.

Innovative economices do not arise from irresponsible financial markets. And all innovation does not come from Silicon Valleys of the world. Organic agriculture is revolutionizing our food system. People want chain of custody and food that is healthy. Has anyone looked at the explosion of cancer and diabetes -- who are the advocates for organic agriculture -- breast cancer survivors. Over the past decade it has been growing at a rate of 15-25% a year -- there is real economic growth, jobs, better health, land ethic.

IMF -- tell me what good they have done in the past 50 years? They have been a complete failure -- a global mechanism for exploitation not economic growth and social wellbeing.

I want Europe to succeed desperately, but Merkel and Sarkozy just got it wrong. Audit the debt, look at the sources of debt. What schools, hospitals, infrastructure, housing, businesses were created by that debt? Who owns that debt and why?

My guess is the people who created the debt are the same ones who are own the financial instruments used to pay back the debt.

"Let it not be forgotten that at the start of February Italy's government has either to repay or to renew €28bn of loans – and no one has a clue how it is going to do so."

I've decided that I'll just sit back and enjoy the slo-mo train-smash.

"Finally, there will need to be a series of long-range economic policies: an end to counterproductive austerity . . . . "

Of all the fantasies being mooted in this editorial, this is surely the most fantastical. In fact, it is thoroughly delusional.
I mean, our political leaders do something that does n't (a) screw the common folk, and (b) further enrich the already rich?
No way!

"These are just a taster, yet it is already clear most of them would be quite beyond any policymakers attempting a last-ditch effort to save the euro."

2011, the year of The Protester. Long may he continue to protest, and generally discomfort all tyrannies and pseudo-democracies everywhere. (When will you visit the UK? We do have some of your clan across here, but they are few in numbers, and far, far too self-restrained)
2012:- the year of the EU's collapse. Shall I begin celebrating now, or later?

Seems to me that 2012 will see the endgame that is the long-running fight for power between national governments and the financial elite, with the Eurozone as the final battlefield.

Corruption, self-interest and ineptitude aside, I think ordinary mortals have to hope that the Governments win the day, as the alternative isn't too enticing.

The future is simply history being replayed.

You'll never hear that again

You talk as if saving the eurozone would be a good thing.

It wouldn't. We need (and we want) to see the back of it - soon, please. Can't come quickly enough ;-)

RIP - The Euro

1993 - 2012

Oh, is it 2012 now? Before Christmas it was

it'll be gone by Christmas

SE26lad
28 December 2011 12:27AM

I would like to withdraw the word, "rac ism" and replace it with, "nationmal snobbery".

Apologies - I accept that racism was the incorrecty term. Although within that change I maintain my general point.

================

I'd leave it if I were you. You are just digging yourself into a deeper hole.

Yes ... but what do Jedward think?

I am not suggesting there is a concerted effort no. The racism to which I refer is probably more of a sniffinesss and a refusal to take them seriously. We still hear that, "China and India are going to be big players" as if they weren't already. But I don't want to ovrplay it.

I guess that if you wear racist tinted glasses, then all you see is racism tinted people.

Perhaps you should take off your glasses.

I would like to withdraw the word, "rac ism" and replace it with, "nationmal snobbery".

Apologies - I accept that racism was the incorrecty term. Although within that change I maintain my general point.

Ah, apologies for my last comment, I only just saw this.

However - It doesn't show much for your strength of conviction now, does it.

Have you changed your mind or merely caved in under the weight of objection?

Oh, is it 2012 now?

And when it survives 2012 it'll be 2013. You should see the Telegraph which has been predicting its imminent collapse every day since a single currency was suggested.

The the oxbridge educated pillocks we have as a political class in Britain aren't very bright and they're toweringly arrogant to go with it. They really can't understand the idea of someone deciding to do something and then making it work - because they'd run at the first sign of trouble - remember Lamont's abject panic when the exchange rate mechanism proved mildly difficult.

We're reached the point where it's like to be RIP the UK before much longer. The euro will be fine.

This editorial appears to suggest that what has failed already will somehow succeed in the near future.

The problem is that the system isn't working! More of the same is just at best, delaying sorting out the problem!

So far, we've had "blame the tube drivers" for the woes of the UK, now it's "Let's repeat the mistakes of the last 30 years and see if they work this time!"

They won't!

Perhaps the Euro Ponzi scheme will not completely collapse yet but just retreat North as the Culb Med countries revolt

Our world-leading Chancellor reckoned that there was six weeks to save the Euro. In September. With such a fine mind* how can he have been so wrong?

*A large smattering of irony there, naturally.

The objective is the removal of a threat to the dollar (something driving recent wars as well).

The UK does not fight Asian corporate takeovers. Mittal owns Corus (British Steel) and is building the Olympic statue, to name just one huge example.

Why is it that so many British people cannot bring themselves to face the overt racism of a media headline about "monkey money" that is seen as fine by a "heart of" EU-ropean country like Luxembourg without inventing some self loathing equivalence fairy story?

The UK does have racism, but it is faced and confronted as it should and must be

But EUrope is awash with it. It is institutionalised from the Banlieus to the Elysee.

Indeed, the problem, the design flaw, with the Euro is that the people of one EU state thinks of the people of other Euro states as inferior. Why should Germans pay for Greeks? Why should Northern Italians pay for Southerners? Why should Walloons pay for Flem's? Why should I pay for you?

The UK will be fine. So will the USA. This design flaw in humanity is recognised here and fought. Its about time Europe did. Part of this is free trade, the respect of others right to work and improve themselves.

In this crisis what is actually happening over a decade time frame is the raising from absolute poverty of a billion or more and the loss of 20% of the wealth of the very richest which, in global terms, includes the poorest person in the UK.

Still, who wants to hear that, charity begins at home for so many. Ironic isn't it?

There will be no repeat of the scenes of Lakshmi Mittal buying Luxembourg's Arcelor in 2006.

The concerns then that there would be wholesale loss of jobs have been shown to be justified.

Is it sniffy to be concerned about losing a country's manufacturing base? Since Mittal took over steelworks have been closed down in Belgium, Luxembourg, France and other countries.

poppy23 at 12:18AM

.. Britain is commonly referred to as being too insignificant to cope outside the EU.

The progressive view of Britain.

How much concern should there be about the pound? A further drop in house prices could lead to a string of mortgage defaults and further pressure on the banks.

Which will collapse first? Sterling or the Euro?

Or will talk of major currencies collapsing, collapse before then.

To the many pundits and CiFers predicting the end to the Euro in 2011, you only have a few days to go now!

What is awful about all this is that the average person, even the intelligent average person, doesn't understand it....

Greatly sympathize with your entire post. What is even more awful, or more sinister, is that we are not meant to understand it. Or maybe "understand" is the wrong verb. We could almost certainly understand if we knew what happened. I for one have never been persuaded that the whole business is the result of incautious lending by banks on both sides of the Atlantic, more or less simultaneously. Why would that happen all of a sudden, and over such a wide area? Bank managers do not in general get to where they are through a willingness to hand out mortgages to anyone. And there has been no net loss. The wealth has not disappeared. Like heat, gas, or electricity, it can be dissipated, but it does not vanish.

The Guardian have entered a dreamworld, let their imaginations rip and sought a solution to the problems of the Euro.

They can't find one. Not even in their dreamworld:

It's an odd way to discover reality but if it works, never mind the oddness. Can we look forward to the Guardian applying the same efficacious technique to some its other shibboleths?

The suggestion that the PM is outside the loop, receiving only a 'red robin' email represents a dismal failure of the Guardian to present accurate information. British intelligence services (and, interestingly, the financial crime section of the City of London Police together with stalwart Standard Chartered) demonstrated an uncanny ability to acquire remarkably good data. This allowed HMG to alert Barclays's Global Capital to the US Treasury's venal gambit to unload Lehmann liabilities masked by a sweetheart deal -- a step that should cause those who believe the United Statesto be an ally to think again.

Accommodate or confiscate. That is the question to be answered.

Either the excess savings in the system have to be accommodated by the ECB creating money to justify them, or they have to be confiscated - either by the bankruptcy procedures or taxation.

That's it. But even that is just a short term fix.

Then the Eurozone has to decide whether it is to have a Federal government with Federal transfers as in the US - which is the only thing that will allow the Euro to survive long term - or that the Eurozone will dissolve in an orderly fashion.

SE26lad
28 December 2011 12:27AM
I would like to withdraw the word, "rac ism" and replace it with, "nationmal snobbery".

Apologies - I accept that racism was the incorrecty term. Although within that change I maintain my general point.

That still doesnt apply uniquely to Asians, as per your original case. but kudos to you for having the integrity to change your opinion after listening to effective argument, and not defending a party line as a matter of principle until you are blue in the face. If more people could do that, it might not be so difficult for common sense to prevail

I am prepared to stick out my neck and make two forecasts for 2012
The Eurozone will not collapse
There will be no permanent solution to the problems of the peripheral Eurozone countries, although progress (of a sort) will be made.
I make the first prediction on the basis that the single market is core to the EU project and the Euro is core to the single market. Without a single legislative framework overseeing tradable goods and services there can be no single market due to the risk from non-tariff barriers That goes for currencies as well, competitive devaluations being a very significant non-tariff barrier. The ECB can keep these 'patients' on some sort of life-support by buying their bonds as yields rise (prices fall) by simply creating Euros and so preventing collapse.
The Euro has uncovered the fundamental problems with the economies, and therefore societies, of Greece, Italy, etc. Just as it would have for the UK. There is no point throwing money at such societies, they need radical transformation. The second prediction is based on the present arrangement of preventing collapse whilst not providing a get out of jail card encourages such transformation. 2012 may well see a mechanism for controlling the finances of Euro using countries and then some measure of dealing with outstanding debts. But that is dependant on how well those countries begin to deal with the rigidities within their own economies and societies.
If in, say, 5 years time the peripheral Eurozone countries have not made significant progress in transforming themselves then there is an argument for them leaving the Euro and ultimately the EU MKII itself.
EU MKII being those using the Euro with the non-Euro users (including the UK) in some sort of trade arrangement albeit not part of a single market, i.e. like Turkey, as they will be excluded from much of the significant regulation.
The ability of those countries to attract foreign investment in the meantime, including the UK, has to be called into doubt so the faster the transformation the better..

checkreakity
28 December 2011 10:05AM
I am prepared to stick out my neck and make two forecasts for 2012
The Eurozone will not collapse
There will be no permanent solution to the problems of the peripheral Eurozone countries, although progress (of a sort) will be made.
I make the first prediction on the basis that the single market is core to the EU project and the Euro is core to the single market.

And yet we had the Single Market before the Euro and the EU project before the Single Market.

Sorry, but Bernard Conolly was right - its in a Death Spiral and not saveable

Saving the euro? The least bad option is an orderly return to national sovereignty. That will not happen because it would mean the Eurocrats eating humble pie. What is likely is that after zillions have been poured into the euro's Black Hole there will be a disorderly return to national currencies. The eurozone countries are now in denial, as the Major government was in 1992 when it stayed in the ERM until it was ejected by the markets at a cost of billions of pounds to the British taxpayer. The same thing is likely to happen to the euro.

The euro is profundly unpopular in the countries that actually have to use it as their currency.

For the Dutch & Germans the replacement of the Guilder and DMark by the euro was treated with distrust and concern, as events have transpired we were right to be worried about how the imposition of a single currency would impact us.

We have seen the so called "strict criteria for budget deficits" ignored on repeated occasions by various EU members, most notably the French.

We have seen the ridiculous outcome of the single currency forcing the less profligate EU countries being forced to bail out the reckless, this was according to the economists never supposed to happen, yet like much EU propaganda has been shown to be yet another lie.

Of course for the French dreams of a Federal europe it is imperative that the euro is kept artifically alive, for the majority of europeans a return to the original aims of a united europe e.g. a a european economic community is something we wish for, the additional seizing of national freedoms by the technocrats of Brussels is someting we do not want, nor do we wish to allow to continue.

My personal prediction is that within 10 years we will see a retreat by the EU of its grandoise aims of ruling 450 million citizens from Brussels, and a return to a more democratic union, in which national goverments take the lead in what their own countries foreign, economic and judicial policies should be.

Erm, the article is wrong in relation to the franc being a safe haven, according to the Bloomberg correlated weighted currencies index it was flat in 2011

There is a difference between a "safe haven" and a "good punt".

And you yourself allude to the reason why the Swiss Franc was "flat" last year...

Given that the SNB are on a determined policy of devaluation (in order to promote Swiss exports) they'll continue to lower the value of the franc through 2012.

... although it wasn't "devaluation". What they did was tie the value of the Franc to the Euro to prevent it from shooting up.