4 ms·

Ironically, Germany generally also controls the Euro for the so called PIIGS countries. For all intents and purposes the euro is just as much as an externally-c

Ironically, Germany generally also controls the Euro for the so called PIIGS countries. For all intents and purposes the euro is just as much as an externally-controlled entity as the Libra.

darawk 7y ago
Like any incumbent, they don't like competition.
akie 7y ago
Oh come on, you’re being (deliberately?) quite liberal with the truth here.
- darawk 7y ago
  Not really. Germany effectively controls the euro, and it's not a great thing for many of its member countries. It was entered into as a union, sure, but now it's effectively a prison.
- buboard 7y ago
  Maybe not "imposes" , it's voluntary participation. But there is no easy , not even intermediate route out of the Euro. And as money, it's not much different from a hard currency you can't control for countries that can't catch up with the developed economies of the north.
  - azernik 7y ago
    The "liberal with the truth" bit isn't about the ability to exit; it's about the EU being "externally controlled". The EU is an organization of which each Eurozone member is, well, a member. They have votes in the EU Parliament and European Council (the latter is responsible for appointing the ECB president) and a say in deciding the membership of the Executive Board. (Indeed, the German Constitutional Court generally rules on the constitutionality of power transfers to Brussels based on the degree to which the control of said powers is democratic.)
    - buboard 7y ago
      i meant that the Euro, as national currency of italy and greece, is "externally controlled", cannot be bent to the needs of those countries , but to the needs of germany. Eurozone is not the EU
      - azernik 7y ago
        The Eurozone is a subset of EU members; decisions about the governance of the Euro are made by the Euro-using subset of the European Council (the upper house of the EU legislature, representing member states directly). Germany has a voting share on the Council proportional to its population. Germany's outsized influence came 25 years ago, when it had the dominant part in writing up the rules and powers of the ECB.
        buboard 7y ago
        germany has outsize influence, whether it is by choice, and whether they like it or not. Their decisions have such effects as bank bail-ins and capital controls in other euro countries
- brownbat 7y ago
  The first poster compared a proposed digital currency--one that no one might ever even use--to Nazi-era fascism and an assault on democracy. Buboard suggests that Germany exerts coercive monetary pressure over some other Eurozone countries. That crosses the line for you? If Ireland had independent monetary policy maybe it could have lanced the bubble earlier and not been hit with 14% unemployment after the end of the Celtic tiger era. If Greece didn't have Merkel on the other side of every table, it could have attempted something similar to the Plano Real, rebasing its currency completely and restructuring its society through default. Or maybe they would be way worse off without Germany. Who knows? A claim that Germany has an outsized impact on monetary policy, at times to the disadvantage of other negotiators, is certainly debatable! But it's not the sort of thing you can brush aside ad lapidem. Especially not in the context of this farcically hyperbolic thread.
JAlexoid 7y ago
"Imposes"... Yeah.... Right... Was it Germany that forced Greece to cook their books to be accepted into Euro?
- denton-scratch 7y ago
  Well, "forced" is probably a bit strong. German manufacturers need markets; Germany "encouraged" the other members of the EU to allow countries like Croatia and Greece to accede, even though they didn't meet the entry requirements. There are good reasons why the UK declined to join the Euro.
- fulafel 7y ago
  The EU, incl. Germany, did kind of encourage it. Same happened for other countries accessions. And of coures France and Germany bent the EU budget rules all the time too. Then when things started going poorly in Greece, the gang kicking the fallen guy promptly forgot about this. (To be clear, many of the rules reflected a irrationally strict anti-debt anti-inflation puritanism to begin with, and the problem was more in the rules than their lack of enforcement)

Ironically, Germany generally also controls the Euro for the so called PIIGS countries. For all intents and purposes the euro is just as much as an externally-controlled entity as the Libra.

darawk 7y ago

Like any incumbent, they don't like competition.

akie 7y ago

Oh come on, you’re being (deliberately?) quite liberal with the truth here.

darawk 7y ago
Not really. Germany effectively controls the euro, and it's not a great thing for many of its member countries. It was entered into as a union, sure, but now it's effectively a prison.
buboard 7y ago
Maybe not "imposes" , it's voluntary participation. But there is no easy , not even intermediate route out of the Euro. And as money, it's not much different from a hard currency you can't control for countries that can't catch up with the developed economies of the north.
- azernik 7y ago
  The "liberal with the truth" bit isn't about the ability to exit; it's about the EU being "externally controlled". The EU is an organization of which each Eurozone member is, well, a member. They have votes in the EU Parliament and European Council (the latter is responsible for appointing the ECB president) and a say in deciding the membership of the Executive Board. (Indeed, the German Constitutional Court generally rules on the constitutionality of power transfers to Brussels based on the degree to which the control of said powers is democratic.)
  - buboard 7y ago
    i meant that the Euro, as national currency of italy and greece, is "externally controlled", cannot be bent to the needs of those countries , but to the needs of germany. Eurozone is not the EU
    - azernik 7y ago
      The Eurozone is a subset of EU members; decisions about the governance of the Euro are made by the Euro-using subset of the European Council (the upper house of the EU legislature, representing member states directly). Germany has a voting share on the Council proportional to its population. Germany's outsized influence came 25 years ago, when it had the dominant part in writing up the rules and powers of the ECB.
      - buboard 7y ago
        germany has outsize influence, whether it is by choice, and whether they like it or not. Their decisions have such effects as bank bail-ins and capital controls in other euro countries
brownbat 7y ago
The first poster compared a proposed digital currency--one that no one might ever even use--to Nazi-era fascism and an assault on democracy. Buboard suggests that Germany exerts coercive monetary pressure over some other Eurozone countries. That crosses the line for you? If Ireland had independent monetary policy maybe it could have lanced the bubble earlier and not been hit with 14% unemployment after the end of the Celtic tiger era. If Greece didn't have Merkel on the other side of every table, it could have attempted something similar to the Plano Real, rebasing its currency completely and restructuring its society through default. Or maybe they would be way worse off without Germany. Who knows? A claim that Germany has an outsized impact on monetary policy, at times to the disadvantage of other negotiators, is certainly debatable! But it's not the sort of thing you can brush aside ad lapidem. Especially not in the context of this farcically hyperbolic thread.

JAlexoid 7y ago

"Imposes"... Yeah.... Right... Was it Germany that forced Greece to cook their books to be accepted into Euro?

denton-scratch 7y ago
Well, "forced" is probably a bit strong. German manufacturers need markets; Germany "encouraged" the other members of the EU to allow countries like Croatia and Greece to accede, even though they didn't meet the entry requirements. There are good reasons why the UK declined to join the Euro.
fulafel 7y ago
The EU, incl. Germany, did kind of encourage it. Same happened for other countries accessions. And of coures France and Germany bent the EU budget rules all the time too. Then when things started going poorly in Greece, the gang kicking the fallen guy promptly forgot about this. (To be clear, many of the rules reflected a irrationally strict anti-debt anti-inflation puritanism to begin with, and the problem was more in the rules than their lack of enforcement)