In her office in Berlin, Angela Merkel waited by her phone. A small group of advisors waited with her, unusually quiet. Their eyes moved back and forth between the clock and the telephones. Finally, a ring shatters the silence. The defense minister picks it up. He listens, nods, barks an acknowledgement into the phone, and hangs it up. He turns to the chancellor.
Der Rubikon ist gekreuzt worden.
This is from a great post by Jim Bennett.
In the form of a thriller, he shows one way the current Euro currency crisis could play out.
Schadenfreude is a German word, but we in the Anglosphere occasionally feel a twinge of it … .
It’s tempting to engage in schadenfreude over the Euro’s problems because so many commentators spent the past decade talking crap about how it was going to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. However, no matter how the problem plays out, the UK and US are going to get screwed by it too.
I do think that the sounder countries withdrawing and leaving the “bacon-lover’s Euro” (i.e., PIIGS only) is the least worst solution.
Fail to see what s so great about it. Schoolboy German (D-), faulty French. Improbable dialogues – why wd two continental european politicians discuss the prisoner`s dilemma and generally talk like Yanks ?
As a eurozone prisoner I understand yr schadenfreude but as Jim Bennett has pointed out, it won`t help you. Also, I seem to recall that both the Yanks and Brits have problems of their own. Switzerland, anyone ?
The Euro is about business, not national sentiment and even less about sentimentality.
If you approach this issue with any kind of feelings, you’ss just end up havening them hurt terribly.
“you’ll”, sorry.
“Der Rubikon ist gekreuzt worden. ”
What is this? Germany is encircled by countries with ruined economies. Frau Merkel orders everyone out of the room apart from the top three economic advisors. Another one of those “Downfall” satire clips?
Germany should offer a leveraged buyout of Greece. Fire current management, sell off some assets, redo the pension structure.
Germany should offer a leveraged buyout of Greece.
“The Euro is about business”: well, monkey business.
Alternately, the PIGS nations could all be consolidated into one unit.
Oh, wait…
Dearieme:
The lion’s share of European trade is conducted between European countries and by removing currency fluctuations the Euro has been and still is worth the costs.
Helicopter Ben rescuing underwater American homeowners.
Alright, that was a bit nasty, sorry.
Ralf, my picture was meant as a joke, and the thrust of the joke is that the so-called PIGS are not going to submit to political and fiscal control from Germany, or anyone else, at least in part because politicians can whip up memories of the Second World War, as the Greeks have already done.
I know that it was a joke, my remark in the email and my link to the other picture above also were meant as such. I should have made that more a bit more plain. My “nasty” remark was about my own link, for I felt right afterwards that some people might take it personally.