The EU wants to get to a point of peace with Russia because they know that America is not going to continue to bankroll this war, and they can't afford it.
Unfortunately for them, Russia has them bent over a barrel, so their demands are gonna be rich.
The US is tapped out, so no help to come from that hemisphere.
The only hope for the EU is that China will come in with some kind of a bailout program because they don't want to see Russia conquer Europe and then be able to form a Eurasian hegemony that will then proceed to roll China...
But bailout without restructuring is just extending the bad practices, and Europe needs to cut spending. Unfortunately "stop spending money you don't have" is never a vote-winner, so herein lies a challenge.
But in that regard, Europe has a really surprising opportunity because the EU and ECB are kind of autocratic, so if China will underwrite the Euro, they can be given partial control over monetary policy, so that the failures will be the bad banks rather than the entire currency.
But the problem that remains is the individual countries. The French and Italians don't understand financial markets, they understand that you vote for presidents who do or don't give you nice stuff. The reality is more like "Vote for whoever you want, but if they are not financially sound, you get flogged by the bond market".
It's like the scene in Indiana Jones: Voters decide which cup to drink from, and the bond market says whether they chose wisely, or not.
RT: https://merovingian.club/users/vexo/statuses/117140832217206212
Unfortunately for them, Russia has them bent over a barrel, so their demands are gonna be rich.
The US is tapped out, so no help to come from that hemisphere.
The only hope for the EU is that China will come in with some kind of a bailout program because they don't want to see Russia conquer Europe and then be able to form a Eurasian hegemony that will then proceed to roll China...
But bailout without restructuring is just extending the bad practices, and Europe needs to cut spending. Unfortunately "stop spending money you don't have" is never a vote-winner, so herein lies a challenge.
But in that regard, Europe has a really surprising opportunity because the EU and ECB are kind of autocratic, so if China will underwrite the Euro, they can be given partial control over monetary policy, so that the failures will be the bad banks rather than the entire currency.
But the problem that remains is the individual countries. The French and Italians don't understand financial markets, they understand that you vote for presidents who do or don't give you nice stuff. The reality is more like "Vote for whoever you want, but if they are not financially sound, you get flogged by the bond market".
It's like the scene in Indiana Jones: Voters decide which cup to drink from, and the bond market says whether they chose wisely, or not.
RT: https://merovingian.club/users/vexo/statuses/117140832217206212
@cjd
Realistically, I see the best play of for Europe is to have a crisis, for instance, French bonds go beserk so they decide, along with the Italians, to get out of the EU - this mean they go bakc to their old currencies and they tell all their creditors to go fuck themselves.
With this new development, several countries go to Russia and China to make trade deals with them as they also want to get out of the EU, applying to BRICS without the danger of a NATO intervention in their country.
Also, if the French bonds go berserk, going back to their old currency doesn't make those bonds go away. Telling the creditors to pound sand is a strategy, but then nobody will lend them anything at all. Any European country that talks about going back to their old currency, is PROBABLY going to print money and dump it on their populous, in order to get EUR, or USD, or whatever is the currency their actual bonds are denominated in, and pay them.
That every full on hyperinflation scenario in the past century has been exactly that dynamic.
So in this regard, EUR is protecting the people from themselves. It'd be better if it was XAU but that's a digression...
The other problem with exiting the EU is then each state is gonna get treated like some South American joke country by Russia, China, etc. And nobody wants to end up negotiating like that.
That every full on hyperinflation scenario in the past century has been exactly that dynamic.
So in this regard, EUR is protecting the people from themselves. It'd be better if it was XAU but that's a digression...
The other problem with exiting the EU is then each state is gonna get treated like some South American joke country by Russia, China, etc. And nobody wants to end up negotiating like that.
There's five things a country can do:
1. Stay in the Euro, keep paying creditors, keep borrowing and pretending (status quo)
2. Stay in the Euro, keep paying creditors, stop irrational spending (the "diet and exercise" answer because it works the best but nobody ever does it)
3. Stay in the Euro, default on debts, irrational spending stops by force because nobody will lend you any more money. Government is fucked, but the country keeps functioning.
4. Leave the Euro, keep paying creditors, keep borrowing and pretending (hyperinflation 💀 )
5. Leave the Euro, keep paying creditors, stop irrational spending (haha nobody gonna do that shit, nice try)
6. Leave the Euro, default on debts... Become financially very isolated, hard to convince anyone to accept your money on foreign exchange markets, imports become challenging, foreign investment scared, probably 💀
1. Stay in the Euro, keep paying creditors, keep borrowing and pretending (status quo)
2. Stay in the Euro, keep paying creditors, stop irrational spending (the "diet and exercise" answer because it works the best but nobody ever does it)
3. Stay in the Euro, default on debts, irrational spending stops by force because nobody will lend you any more money. Government is fucked, but the country keeps functioning.
4. Leave the Euro, keep paying creditors, keep borrowing and pretending (hyperinflation 💀 )
5. Leave the Euro, keep paying creditors, stop irrational spending (haha nobody gonna do that shit, nice try)
6. Leave the Euro, default on debts... Become financially very isolated, hard to convince anyone to accept your money on foreign exchange markets, imports become challenging, foreign investment scared, probably 💀
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@cjd
95% it will simply be option 1 until collapse.
Option 6 could work if countries work trade deals with other countries to be effective AFTER they leave the euro. Big countries like France, Italy and Spain are able to pull this off.
They will have a competitive advantage of the new depreciating currency where their economy become cheaper. It won't be an easy transition at all but it's an effective way of taking the diet and exercise pill but with the benefit of having more independence.
Depreciating currency has other effects, too - assets such as land and immovable capital goods become cheaper for foreign investors (and locals with foreign assets) to invest in.
Importing less-than-law-abiding cheap labour has the opposite effect - bids up property prices, crowding out new productive uses for it, whilst making the labour cheaper yet less productive (a key aspect of competitiveness).
Importing less-than-law-abiding cheap labour has the opposite effect - bids up property prices, crowding out new productive uses for it, whilst making the labour cheaper yet less productive (a key aspect of competitiveness).
How do you suppose these assets actually get cheaper?
If you were to just print money, the money loses value and everything else stay the same.
YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY MAKE PEOPLE POORER.
You have to bust the unions so the workers won't demand higher wages as the value of the money decreases.
You have to cause financial depressions to impoverish the nation.
You have to send the women to work, in order to compete down the wages so that you can keep making and keep exporting.
But the people who are now making less money still have to eat, so now you have to invent slop so they can afford to eat and make cheaper goods that you can export.
You need to change the laws to cause more divorces and more lawsuits in order to make people spend more money so they'll work harder so you can keep making things and exporting them cheaply.
You have to import foreigners to keep the system propped up with cheap labor.
Then you need wars so you can steal something from someone else to keep the system afloat.
In the end it collapses, it always collapses. Because you sold the souls of your progeny to a Ponzi Scheme of your own creation.
A lot of people on here blame this on The Jews, and many of them are very guilty - but these are simply the incentives of fiat currency. The money printer is like Gollum's Ring, you start out full of excitement at the future you can build, 100 years later you're hiding in a storm drain scraping the ridges off of coins.
It is what it does.
Every time.
If you were to just print money, the money loses value and everything else stay the same.
YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY MAKE PEOPLE POORER.
You have to bust the unions so the workers won't demand higher wages as the value of the money decreases.
You have to cause financial depressions to impoverish the nation.
You have to send the women to work, in order to compete down the wages so that you can keep making and keep exporting.
But the people who are now making less money still have to eat, so now you have to invent slop so they can afford to eat and make cheaper goods that you can export.
You need to change the laws to cause more divorces and more lawsuits in order to make people spend more money so they'll work harder so you can keep making things and exporting them cheaply.
You have to import foreigners to keep the system propped up with cheap labor.
Then you need wars so you can steal something from someone else to keep the system afloat.
In the end it collapses, it always collapses. Because you sold the souls of your progeny to a Ponzi Scheme of your own creation.
A lot of people on here blame this on The Jews, and many of them are very guilty - but these are simply the incentives of fiat currency. The money printer is like Gollum's Ring, you start out full of excitement at the future you can build, 100 years later you're hiding in a storm drain scraping the ridges off of coins.
It is what it does.
Every time.
When you actually let a free-floating currency depreciate, everybody takes a "haircut", not just the working classes.
That is why Eurozone leaders won't do it, and instead use measures that emmiserate only the 99%.
Other than that, yes, I agree.
That is why Eurozone leaders won't do it, and instead use measures that emmiserate only the 99%.
Other than that, yes, I agree.
You're imagining what you suppose might happen when you debase the money, but you don't have to imagine, we already know exactly what happens.
This happens.
And this.
And then this.
And this.
Debasing the currency for economic stimulus is selling the children of your nation to slavery for trinkets.
src: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
This happens.
And this.
And then this.
And this.
Debasing the currency for economic stimulus is selling the children of your nation to slavery for trinkets.
src: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
We disagree only over minor details, bro.
I will say 1971 wasn't just a devaluation, but an inflection point in a structural change in how America's elite related to their productive classes.
I will say 1971 wasn't just a devaluation, but an inflection point in a structural change in how America's elite related to their productive classes.
I will argue that all of those things are fundamental to monetary debasement. Because if you just devalue the currency but you do none of those other things, all prices will instantly go up as the market re-values the currency, and you will have achieved nothing except a partial debt jubilee.
If you want to actually "become more competitive", you need the real price of things your country sells to go down, so you need to pay economists to find ways to "reduce inflation" as you devalue the currency. And every solution those economists propose will be one thing on that WTF1971 website.
I am very anal about this topic because this is THE thing that destroys nations.
If you want to actually "become more competitive", you need the real price of things your country sells to go down, so you need to pay economists to find ways to "reduce inflation" as you devalue the currency. And every solution those economists propose will be one thing on that WTF1971 website.
I am very anal about this topic because this is THE thing that destroys nations.
From a pure economics POV, yes, 100%.
Bad tools like debasement do have political uses for the political class, though. Some of them aren't even entirely harmful. Debasement/depreciation is one of very few mechanisms by which politicians can quickly address price overhang, for example, in the valuation of both consumer goods and capital assets.
Bad tools like debasement do have political uses for the political class, though. Some of them aren't even entirely harmful. Debasement/depreciation is one of very few mechanisms by which politicians can quickly address price overhang, for example, in the valuation of both consumer goods and capital assets.
In theory, sure.
But in theory, a central bank would not print their currency away to worthlessness. In practice, they always do.
South/Central American countries which dollarized all ended up better off than ones that didn't, DESPITE the fact that their banks had to become far more conservative.
And that's just because their governments couldn't fuck with it.
But in theory, a central bank would not print their currency away to worthlessness. In practice, they always do.
South/Central American countries which dollarized all ended up better off than ones that didn't, DESPITE the fact that their banks had to become far more conservative.
And that's just because their governments couldn't fuck with it.
Welcome to humanity, where each life is a literal economic unit forced to participate in a vicious cycle of product/service consumption and debt allocation until death.
bortcorn forxes thors 🤓
But seriously, you could fix this by switching to ANYTHING as money as long as the government can't print it, because once they can no longer print it, they have no real excuse to keep fucking with the economy in order to REdUcE iNfLaTiOn
But seriously, you could fix this by switching to ANYTHING as money as long as the government can't print it, because once they can no longer print it, they have no real excuse to keep fucking with the economy in order to REdUcE iNfLaTiOn
I see the ebil NaZi's uses as a reference of a working financial system that replaced cratered fiat; wonder if that would work in today's world of heavily imported cheap labor.
They did something a bit like Abe Lincoln, they had the government print the money and distribute it rather than a central bank.
I don't like this solution because it has never really had longevity. Even if you are a great leader who always only prints the right amount of money to keep the economy functioning well, eventually your successor comes to power, and every time he has Big Plans he wants to implement, and those plans require printing a lot of money, and so begins the road to hell.
I don't like this solution because it has never really had longevity. Even if you are a great leader who always only prints the right amount of money to keep the economy functioning well, eventually your successor comes to power, and every time he has Big Plans he wants to implement, and those plans require printing a lot of money, and so begins the road to hell.
Well, then would an expiring currency work? It's issued and only exists in say one CY to be used and if it's not, it's lost and the next batch is issued?
Just thinking out loud on a Sunday morning. I at the end of the time window people would be dumping it into anything else, which probably would have its own issues. The federal government sort of operates in that manor except it isn't time for budgets, its spending amounts. So if you don't spend it all, you get less next year.
Just thinking out loud on a Sunday morning. I at the end of the time window people would be dumping it into anything else, which probably would have its own issues. The federal government sort of operates in that manor except it isn't time for budgets, its spending amounts. So if you don't spend it all, you get less next year.
@cjd
Yes! Because these country are poorer in reality. The euro is way too appreciated/expensive for economies like these 3 I mentioned. The weaker currency means the producers have to raise their productivity, which today is too overinflated due to the euro.
It's a painful pill, but it's lot more honest - despite using the euro, spain for example has NO chance to compete against netherlands. It's a crime they share currency.
As Raison said above, importing immigrats have the inverse effect.
What precisely prevents Spanish producers from just ... charging less Euros ?
If you make a new Spanish currency which is 0.75% of 1 Euro, why are the Spanish producers not going to just ... charge 25% more?
And, if you have some way to make the Spanish producers NOT charge 25% more, why can't you use that right now, to make them charge 25% less Euros?
Just face it, there's no explanation, and the only reason anyone actually wants a new currency is so they can convert Grandma's savings account into it and then inflate away 25% of her savings.
It's thievery and everyone involved needs to face the wall over it.
If you make a new Spanish currency which is 0.75% of 1 Euro, why are the Spanish producers not going to just ... charge 25% more?
And, if you have some way to make the Spanish producers NOT charge 25% more, why can't you use that right now, to make them charge 25% less Euros?
Just face it, there's no explanation, and the only reason anyone actually wants a new currency is so they can convert Grandma's savings account into it and then inflate away 25% of her savings.
It's thievery and everyone involved needs to face the wall over it.
@cjd
First of all, I agree that the solution is to go back to hard currency, Gold, which keeps money as honest as possible. I would say ideally we trade with metal coins instead of paper money and only use XAU/crypto based off real gold for big transfers.
But in Europe, there's the problem of extreme regulation. There are many issues to list, but all of them together (request for raises, inflation, price controls, subsidies, unions, etc) make impossible for prices to go down in EUR terms.
@cjd
The solution that was used even before the euro comes along, these countries would frequently devaluate their currency to keep their competitive edge. It was a way they found to keep the fiat system but to go around the desire of the people of increasingly requesting more socialism.
In any case, I'm being realistic considering the point we currently are. If it were up to me, just like you said, hard currency, very small government, full local automony, weak federation and tough on crime.
> hard currency, very small government, full local automony, weak federation and tough on crime
Europe has "full local autonomy" and "weak federation", being tough on crime is up to the member states.
Nobody ever accused the EU of "small government" but by the raw numbers they're doing a fair bit (hell of a lot) better than the US...
Europe has "full local autonomy" and "weak federation", being tough on crime is up to the member states.
Nobody ever accused the EU of "small government" but by the raw numbers they're doing a fair bit (hell of a lot) better than the US...
> First of all, I agree that the solution is to go back to hard currency, Gold, which keeps money as honest as possible.
I think it's important to discuss exactly why fiat money ruins nations.
It's not just that the money loses value over time, that's a frustration and it makes saving and lending more difficult. The REAL problem is two-fold:
1. Free money makes people lazy and uncompetitive
2. All of the economic interventions that are necessary to "fight inflation" end up being a destroy-the-nation speed run.
The reason why this is important is because it shows that adopting someone else's paper currency is actually not that much different from adopting gold. If you're Moracco for example, deciding to use Chinese Yuan isn't a whole lot different from deciding to use gold grams.
---
> But in Europe, there's the problem of extreme regulation.
Yes, but that problem is 99% at the member state level. It's not that the EU is benevolent, it's just that they don't have that the political power to force member states to go along with something, and with so many competing interests it's hard to get consensus behind anything.
The member states are forever menacing that they will leave the union, and the union has no direct tax authority so they can't even raise money without begging it from the states. As far as systems go, it's really not that bad at all...
I think it's important to discuss exactly why fiat money ruins nations.
It's not just that the money loses value over time, that's a frustration and it makes saving and lending more difficult. The REAL problem is two-fold:
1. Free money makes people lazy and uncompetitive
2. All of the economic interventions that are necessary to "fight inflation" end up being a destroy-the-nation speed run.
The reason why this is important is because it shows that adopting someone else's paper currency is actually not that much different from adopting gold. If you're Moracco for example, deciding to use Chinese Yuan isn't a whole lot different from deciding to use gold grams.
---
> But in Europe, there's the problem of extreme regulation.
Yes, but that problem is 99% at the member state level. It's not that the EU is benevolent, it's just that they don't have that the political power to force member states to go along with something, and with so many competing interests it's hard to get consensus behind anything.
The member states are forever menacing that they will leave the union, and the union has no direct tax authority so they can't even raise money without begging it from the states. As far as systems go, it's really not that bad at all...
Depreciating currency is just another way of saying you're more competitive when your people are poorer. You can also accomplish the same goal by importing millions of low wage workers to bid down salaries.
And in the end, there's no reason to actually leave the Euro, unless, you want to print a fuckton of money and hyper-inflate. The Euro isn't doing anything that's really actually bad.