The height of Euro terrorization, beginning with Greece, was: if you don’t comply “we’ll kick you out of the Euro!”. The first inkling of this terrorization came with a supposed leak from the Greek Euro Commissioner Maria Damanaki that, watch it! Secret plans are being drawn up in Brussels to kick us (Greece) out of the Euro! Terror, terror, cringe, cringe!
Next the terror was ratcheted up by The Frau herself. When Papandreou declared he was going to hold a referendum in Greece on whether to agree to the bail out plan or not back in 2011, The Frau went hysterical. No! You can’t do that! We (she and her side kick now defunct Sarkozy) forbid it! The only thing, she tells the PM of Greece you can have a referendum on is whether Greece wants to stay in the Euro or not!
A threat! A terrible threat! If you so much as dare to question any of my decisions I will boot you out! To his eternal shame, Papandreou caved in utterly, bowed his head and forgot all about asking the people concerned anything.
Now, it’s a replay of the old show. FURTHER debilitating cuts across the board, ON TOP of all you’ve been subjected to so far, otherwise… yes! You guessed it! We won’t be able to stay in the Eurozone! Horror, horror!
But just what is this sacred cow, the Euro, eh? We’ve been promised more hardship, more cuts, more taxes, more unemployment, more recession… In fact we have been promised eternal recession. A Belgian official suggested Greece give up all her rights and become a vassal state for at least 15 years to get her economics right while REMAINING IN THE EURO! Greece must not leave the Euro. He says (as many other have been reiterating) but she must become a waste land.
Now, that doesn’t make much sense to anyone any more. Under such a Teutonic regime, the only reason for Greece to remain in the Euro is so that the rest of the Eurozone will not have problems, while Greece ceases to exist.
But this is nonsense. The Greek economy cannot survive within the Euro whereas it has a fighting chance outside the Euro. In fact perhaps more even than a fighting chance outside the Euro. When the cost of staying in the Euro is to turn your country into a waste land of eternal austerity with no prospects of any growth at all for the next fifty years or so, is it worth it?
I put it to you, that it is not. This is just a bad replay of the Gold Standard. With exactly the same destructive results. Well, okay, the only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history. Even though history has a nasty little habit of repeating itself.
The proposed extra 11,5 billion Euro cuts in the Greek economy, for starters, is the death knell for the Euro in Greece. Instead of cringing, and bending and hiding from reality our government would serve the country much better if it began negotiations for an orderly exit from the Euro. And failing that, an orderly exit, they should be laying plans for what a disorderly exit would entail.
Of course having used the “we’ll be thrown out of the Euro!” scare to get into power, it might prove a little difficult. But it is the only thing they can and perhaps should do at the stage we have now reached. Not least owing to their own utter mismanagement of affairs.
But what is interesting is that public opinion in Italy is also changing. The number of Italians believing their country would be better off outside the Euro has doubled. And for Italy the transition would be far easier than for Greece.
When everybody abandoned the Gold Standard, economies started to improve and grow. Instead of all this nonsense and protracted grief, wouldn’t it be better if we all started thinking about abandoning the Euro?