EPTArticle
Mod Edit: This is serious business. Anyone who posts trash in this thread will be banned.
The European Debt Crisis and the Euro
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lOvOlUNiMEDiA
United States643 Posts
Article Mod Edit: This is serious business. Anyone who posts trash in this thread will be banned. | ||
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InToTheWannaB
United States4770 Posts
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TanGeng
Sanya12364 Posts
Europe might go to hell in a hand basket. But it cannot be doubted that the Mediterranean countries are all basket cases. I think Greece will learn its lessons though. It is the socialist government adopting the austere measures to bring their public debt under control. Painful but worse would be bailing Italy and Portugal and watching Spain disintegrate into three or four countries. Spain still might disintegrate into multiple countries regardless. | ||
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n.DieJokes
United States3443 Posts
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LunarDestiny
United States4177 Posts
For example, if a country (say Spain) wants to lower interest rate to simulate its economy, it will have to print out more euro. BUT, the EU as a whole might not want to lower the value of the euro. So Spain is screwed. | ||
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Railz
United States1449 Posts
On March 01 2010 15:27 n.DieJokes wrote: I honestly have nothing to add or confirm or deny. I almost wish we would go back to the gold standard so at least I would have some idea what's going on. No you don't Gold Standard leaves zero room for breathing room in both growth and de/inflation. Its cute if you run a country with a non growing, non decreasing population, but beyond that, a gold backed system is a child's dream. | ||
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TanGeng
Sanya12364 Posts
We'll just have to wait to see how the dominoes topple. | ||
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MamiyaOtaru
United States1687 Posts
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Railz
United States1449 Posts
On March 01 2010 15:37 MamiyaOtaru wrote: this was a worry way back when the whole Euro thing was starting. I'm mildly surprised it hasn't turned into a real issue until now I feel like the main problem in the Eurozone is that the Euro Parliament has zero power in any of this. So every state does what they please with the knowledge that France or Germany will save them from bankruptcy. We'd pretty much laugh off any state that request more money for their own state programs. Federal programs might keep them from falling into poverty but they'd lose their fluffy cushions for sure. | ||
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Rothbardian
United States497 Posts
On March 01 2010 15:31 Railz wrote: No you don't Gold Standard leaves zero room for breathing room in both growth and de/inflation. Its cute if you run a country with a non growing, non decreasing population, but beyond that, a gold backed system is a child's dream. What currency did we have during the Industrial Revolution and subsequent explosion in standard of living? While I do not particularly advocate a Gold Standard (As I believe all monopolies are hurtful), it is much better than the current fiat system we have now. I think Joseph Schumpeter puts it best: An ‘automatic’ gold currency is part and parcel of a laissez-faire and free-trade economy. It links every nation’s money rates and price levels with the money-rates and price levels of all the other nations that are ‘on gold.’ It is extremely sensitive to government expenditure and even to attitudes or policies that do not involve expenditure directly, for example, to foreign policy, to certain policies of taxation, and, in general, to precisely all those policies that violate the principles of [classical] liberalism. This is the reason why gold is so unpopular now and also why it was so popular in a bourgeois era. It imposes restrictions upon governments or bureaucracies that are much more powerful than is parliamentary criticism. It is both the badge and the guarantee of bourgeois freedom—of freedom not simply of the bourgeois interest, but of freedom in the bourgeois sense. From this standpoint a man may quite rationally fight for it, even if fully convinced of the validity of all that has ever been urged against it on economic grounds. From the standpoint of etatisme and planning, a man may not less rationally condemn it, even if fully convinced of the validity of all that has ever been urged for it on economic grounds. Why you would let anyone purposefully devalue your money (Ergo, making you poorer) is beyond my comprehension. I also like this by Henry Ford: "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." Personally, I prefer private competing currencies ala F.A. Hayek's - Denationalisation of Money. Also, if I can find the YT clip of Thomas Woods great lecture about the nature of money, it will easily disprove the Monetarist and Neo-Classicist position that money must increase in quantity for an equal or greater rise in productiveness. In fact, deflation is far better than inflation, especially so since inflation is hideously regressive (Ergo, theft). | ||
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Rothbardian
United States497 Posts
On March 01 2010 15:40 Railz wrote: I feel like the main problem in the Eurozone is that the Euro Parliament has zero power in any of this. So every state does what they please with the knowledge that France or Germany will save them from bankruptcy. We'd pretty much laugh off any state that request more money for their own state programs. Federal programs might keep them from falling into poverty but they'd lose their fluffy cushions for sure. Have you paid any attention to the last two years? The Federal Government has bailed out pretty much every state, but since the financial situation doesn't change because the politicians do not have the gall to dismantle the Welfare State we are on a path of destruction. There are immutable laws of Economics, and we passed the bankruptcy point a long time ago. We can only stall so long until inflation turns into a currency crisis. The commercial real-estate collapse will trigger the next big event within the next two years. It's going to get severely nasty throughout the whole world. | ||
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Jonoman92
United States9102 Posts
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TanGeng
Sanya12364 Posts
Money should be whatever society wants it to be. I'd trade in any medium of exchange. | ||
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Rothbardian
United States497 Posts
On March 01 2010 15:54 TanGeng wrote: leave it to Rothbarian to argue a principled defense of the gold standard. Money should be whatever society wants it to be. I'd trade in any medium of exchange. I agree, though with the caveat of Money should be whatever the individual wishes to use as their medium of exchange. I don't like conflating society with the individual. :p Personally, I got some local businesses to start trading in Silver. My local agorist network is growing little by little. I suspect when I move to NH though I'll be in a bustling agorist network, or at the very least in an environment which cherishes the counter-economy. | ||
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TanGeng
Sanya12364 Posts
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Rothbardian
United States497 Posts
On March 01 2010 16:02 TanGeng wrote: wow, full blown bartering is like tax evasion. Are you sure the IRS isn't going to come after you? How are they going to know? There was a bristling counter-economy in the USSR and it survived one of the largest most oppressive States in the history of man-kind. Besides, I'm not scared of the IRS, and I will not voluntarily relinquish my natural rights to some arbitrary authority that is threatening me with violence and imprisonment. If they do come after me, I'm not going down alone, thats for sure, and I'm sure Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and John Locke, would be smiling | ||
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mahnini
United States6862 Posts
On March 01 2010 16:04 Rothbardian wrote: How are they going to know? There was a bristling counter-economy in the USSR and it survived one of the largest most oppressive States in the history of man-kind. Besides, I'm not scared of the IRS, and I will not voluntarily relinquish my natural rights to some arbitrary authority that is threatening me with violence and imprisonment. If they do come after me, I'm not going down alone, thats for sure, and I'm sure Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and John Locke, would be smiling don't pay taxes. use public services. FIGHT DA POWER | ||
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TanGeng
Sanya12364 Posts
ok not to de-rail the thread, back to about the Euro going down the tubes or countries moving off of the Euro. It's probably not going to happen because such a move to have such a devastating loss of purchasing power that no one in Greece could stomach it. It might even be worse than the current rioting and striking. So if Germany will hold steady then there will be no bailout, and I think that there is enough legal impetus to do nothing for Greece. | ||
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Rothbardian
United States497 Posts
On March 01 2010 16:07 mahnini wrote: don't pay taxes. use public services. FIGHT DA POWER I try not to use any public services. The State gives me no other choice in regards to roads, and other such monopolized infrastructure. It's kind of hard not to use monopolized infrastructure, and the State gives you no other choice, and if you try to open up your own private road they will come and shut you down, take your assets, and then add on fines and possible imprisonment (kidnapping). Look at what they did to Lysander Spooner when he opened up his Postal Service. It was flourishing and absolutely crushing the USPS. The Government is a joke, precisely because monopolies are always inefficient, destructive, and have no pricing mechanism, ergo always result in over-use and artificial scarcity. Why do you think public health systems always have long waiting lines for everything? When you feel you are getting something for free you are naturally going to over use it, and since Gossen's Third Law rules everything, you will enivitably run into a problem where whatever supply you do have is quickly gone. It's not power I'm against per se; it is arbitrary power, and coercively imposed authority I am specifically against, which our Monetary System is definitely. Look no further than the Liberty Dollar. | ||
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PobTheCad
Australia893 Posts
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