Anyone else wanting the whole EURO fiasco to fail?? And soon.
I see the Germans are prepared - Deutsche Marks already printed and ready to go.

I guess if its going to happen the sooner the better really

Haven't heardvthat. If euro fails would not be a surprise. Thank god for Mr Brown that we didn't enter that muddle.

Would the failure have any effect on us?

No, I don't actively want the euro to fail. What would be the point in wishing that? I suppose it would give the rabid euro-sceptics the chance to say "I told you so", but that doesn't help the economic mess.

I was always in favour of the single currency in the past, but now have come to the conclusion that it is a failed experiment that will rapidly disintegrate after Greece is forced out. Locking disparate economies into a single interest rate just doesn't work.

Edit: Yes, Jayjay, failure of the euro would have a huge effect on us. There would be an economic collapse in the eurozone. Countries in the eurozone are our main export market. I leave you to do the sums.

Edit #2: You can probably replace "would" with "will" in the above.

The single currency was only ever going to work with a single government. That's where it was all leading but public pressure in some countries and economic problems in others have put paid to that and wee should be grateful.

In what way would our exports be affected?

Greece is declared bankrupt. Greeks have less spare cash, so buy less. Imports to the contry fall. Some of those imports would have been exports from the UK.

Isn't it true that, the UK buys in far more than they export so, largely, will be uneffected.
Sort of like a reduction in people buying Aubergines at Sainsburys... Hardly anyone purchases them so if demand was reduced Sainsburys wouldn't really lose any money... they'd just lose the nectar (points).

Where did you see that please?

I'm not sure they have much spare cash at the moment anyway. What do we export to them?

Olive oil will get cheaper!

I don't know what we actually send them, but in 2010 it was worth £343million to the UK economy. That was a drop of 23% from 2008's total.

I know someone who is involved with the printing!

De La Rue

Teutonic efficiency means they will be ready to go whenever they make the decision.

Also:

http://www.arabianmoney.net/us-dollar/2011...-of-euro-chaos/

A 6 month old news article.

Greece has to repay its next debt instalment on December 17th so a pre-Christmas financial market crash is very likely now

must have missed that.

What is the source of the claim that Germany is printing Deutsche Marks and that the British Foreign Office has issued warnings to its embassies?

Ed Note: Latter from Daily Telegraph and do a Google Search on the DM – they would have issued a denial by now if it was not true.

That old Chestnut - thay have not denied it so it must be true. This must be wjy 'Arabianmoney' is such a well know & trusted source of finanical news.

I thought so.

The rumor started with the now infamous speech, in or around October last year, by Dr. Pippa Malmgren.

Other than that, we're left with "oh, but I heard it from a friend....."

Well, I think if Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Finland etc. etc. have no spare cash because their economies have collapsed, I'd have thought it was self-evident that exports to our main trading partners would suffer.

£343 million? It can't be that low - billion surely?

According to http://tutor2u.net/blog/files/EU_Revision_...ade_with_EU.pdf - admittedly old data (2008) our trade deficit with the EU was £45 billion. But 57% of our exports were to the EU. So it's a mixed story, devaluing of ex-euro currencies would help reduce the deficit by lowering the cost of imports; whereas the reduction of ex-Euro economies would reduce the amount they have available to spend on our products.

Who are our main trading (export) partners and are we not taking strategic action already by forging other trade relationships outside the Euro zone?

I hope it isn't £343 billion - the UK exports were only a grand total of £430 billion worth in 2010. I hate the greeks to be 80% of that.....

Exports to the ailing economies of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain have suffered steep declines, according to a study published today. The falls underline the challenges facing the government, which hopes to rebalance the UK economy and use exports to drive future growth.

The study by Close Brothers, based on public trade data, says that the value of UK exports to the five countries plunged by 16% to £9.2bn between the second quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of this year.

The fall accounted for almost half of a general 6.6% drop in UK exports over the same period, the merchant bank said.

"The plight of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain has been well documented and the UK's exporters have been hit hard by this," said Mark Taylor, head of foreign exchange at Close Treasury, a unit of Close Brothers.

The fall comes despite an 11% drop in the value of sterling against the euro over the same period, making British products more affordable abroad.

Exports to Greece plunged by 23%, to only £343m, while sales to Ireland, Britain's biggest trading partner in the group, fell by 20% to £3.8bn, from £4.7bn in 2008. Deals with Spain fell by 10.5% to £2.4bn.

Aah - £343 million is just to Greece.

I wonder how much we buy from them?

The above quote was from a 2010 article in the Grauinad. According to the F&CO =

Greece is the UK's 34th largest export market (2010 ranking). The value of exports of British goods to Greece was £1.12 billion in 2011, , while Greek imports to the UK stood at £645 million

whos' figures are the most accurate I wonder?

Well I can tell you that both the Turkish areas of London and the Greek shops.
Separated by about 4 miles and several gangs, are always full of watermelons.
ce

Fascinating factoid of the day

They are very big ones. Sort of like the guns they carry.
ce

Do they pump the watermelons full of water for that true 'third world' taste?

On a TV program earlier, Michael Portillo asked various Greek and German politicians, business people, and citizens: would they like their old currency back? None did.

The invention of the single currency was a classic example of will-against-reason doctrinaire policy making by a very small number of ideologically driven bureaucrats and a small number of elected people.

The sheer disparity of economies ranging from Portugal and Greece to Germany set of my alarm bells from the very start. It was a dumb attempt to square a circle amid the vision of a "United Europe". The vision was an impossible one, but the bureaucrats and pro-euro zealots just dig the hole ever-deeper.

As I'm sure you know, those 'arguments' sound exactly like the ones put forward in North America when it was decided it might be a good idea if each state stopped making it's own money and all the States just had one currency between them.

I can't help wondering, though, how the US manages with a single currency. Different parts of the US are certainly not equal in their economies, and the populations are roughly the same (300m odd).

Edit: Ha! Same thought at the same time!

The US has one federal government to enforce fiscal discipline?

Correct in the main.

I think the political history of the US is too different from that of Europe to make a useful comparison regarding currencies.

Where in Europe would we like the Euro federal reserve to be situated? Historically, one could argue Rome or Athens?

And they all speak the same language, have total social mobility & all had a good civil war to iron out any differences.

Take your points, but Spanish has made some inroads in one or two states.

Spanish was already there.

The Americans kicked out the Mexicans, then claimed the area as their own & called it 'Texas'.

Hence, they do not "all speak the same language" in the US.

The increase in Spanish has come about as a result of immigration, post formation.

oh yes & the Mafia speak Italian.

You forgot the plains algonquian too.


But on the wole I think you find that, apart from Puerto Rico, English is the language of the USA. It helps when trying to Unify States.

Notwithstanding, they achieved their sovereignty at our expense!

We did get to burn the White House down in 1814. And most of the rest of Washington.

Around 40 million people in the US speak Spanish as their first language and it is growing. Of course, US English is dominant (especially in politics and finance) but it is wrong to dismiss those who speak Spanish, as the language was, as you say, "already there".

I'm not dismissing it. Just saying that one of the fundamental reasons that the USA works as a united states is the unity of language.

Despite the huge influs of immigrants in the 1900s, English is still the language of the USA.

...

US English is the dominant language of the US.

But, in the last 3 business trips I have made to California, I have noticed how many more TV channels are in Spanish.

If unity of language is so important, then why can't we have it in EU politics - so as to stop the hundreds of millions of Euros spent on translation!

Cheaper to translate it than to teach it.

because we have 2000 years of doing things our own way & the Americnas have barley 200 years of doing things together, little differences apart.

So, going back to my original point, a common currency in Europe is not the same as in the US because of different history.

Language & History go hand in hand.

History has an impact on currencies too. The US Dollar is a strong currency, the Euro now looks like a mistake.

Thank goodness we're out of the Euro mess and have our huge gold reserves to rely on if and when the world's economies go completely belly up.......







Doh!!

Perhaps he is just trying to remember where he left his moral compass. Just a shame he never had an economic compass.

I know. Under Gordon Brown unemployment reached a 16 year high, we have a double dip recession, Police and medical profession numbers are reduced, the country's deficit has risen despite austerity measures ........