5 ms·

Lots of propaganda against the Euro. It's going on for a few years now. Especially it's coming from a country which recently caused a world-wide economic crisis

• misja111 11y ago
  How is this propaganda? It seems to me that the article is just listing facts. These facts show a not very positive side of the Euro, but does that make the article propaganda? Also, the article is not about Greece. It's about Finland and the Netherlands, and how they have been doing comparing to Iceland.
  • tonyedgecombe 11y ago
    It can still be propaganda whilst showing facts. I haven't read the article but pretty much everything I have read on the euro exaggerates some facts and ignores others in order to support the political leanings of the writer or their employer.
  • lispm 11y ago
    > It seems to me that the article is just listing facts. How so? It starts with 'The euro might be worse for you than bankruptcy.' This sentence is so vague that it does not make any sense at all. It 'might'? For 'you'? I live in the Eurozone, in Germany, and I fail to see how it is worse than 'bancruptcy. How is growth related to `bancruptcy` of a tiny island? `the results have still been a catastrophe` - low growth in the Netherlands is a catastrophe? Last I looked the Netherlands were a nice country, far form being a 'catastrophe'. 'Now, the normal way to make up for this would be to cut costs by devaluing your currency, except that Finland doesn't have a currency to devalue anymore.' The 'devaluing' theory. Not again. 'since you have to fire people to convince them to take pay cuts.' More theory. Look at Germany. Workers agreed to keep wages stable. Outcome: record low unemployment. 'Iceland' - Iceland has just 300k population on an island. Comparing it to the Netherlands, Greece or Germany is just wrong. Different size, difference situation, different banking system, ...
• D_Alex 11y ago
  I wonder... "the banks" might not like the idea of the Euro, because a common currency eliminates the currency exchange business... how much does this affect their propaganda??
  • lispm 11y ago
    Just look what Europe would be without the Euro. We had that before. West Germany had the Deutsche Mark (DM). It was basically the anchor currency for most European countries. Germany changed it monetary politics? Everybody tried to follow. It was like the Euro, just with different currencies and a pact to keep the exchange rates stable. Main difference: the monetary policy was made by the German Bundesbank and not the ECB. Though both are in Frankfurt/Germany, the ECB is an European institution.
    • aliem 11y ago
      I don't see much of a difference. The only difference is the name and the very big constrains on the countries adhering to the union. I would be for an union if the european countries were like the USA: very close to each other both in language and culture.
• adventured 11y ago
  The Eurozone has seen zero net economic growth for about 8 years, and has 11% unemployment (13% without Germany). GDP has just finally started to get back to where it was in 2007/2008. Germany's GDP is where it was in 2008; France is where it was in 2007, with France having ~10.5% unemployment. Finland has been in an eight year recession/stagnation combination, with zero growth. Their unemployment rate has gone from 7.5% three years ago, to 9.5% today. Their household income to debt ratio has doubled since 2000, to 120%. Italy has seen three recessions in seven years, with an unemployment rate of 12%. Greece has collapsed. Spain has 23% unemployment, Portugal is 14% (and those aren't the U6 equivalent numbers, just the headline). The Netherlands economy hasn't gotten any bigger since 2007, and they now have one of the highest household debt levels on earth, which will continue to crimp their economic growth prospects severely. Ireland's household debt ratio is one of the five worst in the world. Their unemployment rate is nearly 10%, which is a six year low. Austria, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia have seen zero growth since 2007/2008. Simultaneously most of the Eurozone countries have seen a significant expansion of household debt over 10 to 15 years, as they try to prop up their standard of living with debt. The only bump the region has seen economically since 2007, has been via currency devaluation and debt monetization, which has chopped down the Eurozone standard of living by perhaps 20% in exchange for a brief burst of low growth. I'm not sure by what basis one would judge that it's working well at all.
  • programLyrique 11y ago
    Is that because of the euro, or because the policies of austerities that were chosen at that time? The problem with the euro is that it is considered as an economic issue, whereas it should be a political one (and it was when it was created, as the first step in an "ever tighter union"). If we European citizens want to keep the euro, we need to deepen the Union.
    • adventured 11y ago
      If they went with inflation instead of austerity, all you'd see accomplished is the nominal numbers would climb, while the real numbers would not. That's what we're seeing right now with the QE devaluation of the Euro; pretend growth via dropping the value of the Euro (if you have to drop your currency by 20% to get 2% growth, what you have is not growth). Austerity and inflation accomplish the exact same outcome, the only difference between the two depends on how they're implemented, and the lies that the politicians get to spin to pretend one is better than the other (politicians in weak economies almost universally prefer inflation, because they can lie and show nominal growth, and tell their citizens that their wages and pensions aren't falling, when in fact they are in real terms). Take Greece for example. They could exit the Euro and meet all of their domestic obligations - in a debased new currency, that wouldn't actually be meeting the obligations in real terms as the currency tumbled. They'd get to pretend everything was fine nominally. Inflation instead of austerity is used to devalue the amount of debt held, which is a form of defaulting on creditors. It drops the standard of living, as it steals wealth from citizens by devaluing their real incomes and assets.