[x0x0]

Well, it's created by relatively simple facts: a less productive periphery without the aid of a floating currency will require permanent subsidization by the more productive core or the end of the currency union. Now everyone has to pick.

[holoto]

Yes and hopefully Germany picks an Euro exit.

As is clear to anyone interested in the topic and listening to French government officials, binding Germany in the Euro was the price for reunification.

[euccastro]

Euro exit is the nuclear option that Germany wants to keep in order to maintain its hegemony within the Eurozone, but never wants to exercise. The Euro served nobody better than Germany. The day Germany starts facing competitive devaluations all across Europe, recession will be brutal.

[holoto]

@euccastro Yes life was miserable with the Deutsche Mark. Oops it was much better for most Germans. China is in trouble because it controls it's own export destiny through it's currency? I think not.

[euccastro]

Economic policy is not designed for the benefit of "most Germans". I can assure you that life became much better for "some Germans" in the years since the Deutsche Mark, as cheap labor from Eastern Europe drove costs down and profits up, while less competitive countries within the EU couldn't devaluate their currency to rebalance trade flows. Actually, it became so much better that they didn't know what to do with all those euros. So they poured showers of them into said less competitive countries, fostering all kinds of bubbles.

http://blog.mpettis.com/2015/02/syriza-and-the-french-indemn...

When said bubbles exploded, those "some Germans" were bailed out, in great part by money from "most Germans", whatever little could be squeezed from "most Greeks", and "most" people from all countries rich and poor. "Most Greeks" never saw any of that bailout money.

Alas, coming back to the Deutsche Mark will not bring back the good old times for "most Germans". Even if it did, it won't happen because "some Germans" are perfectly happy with the current situation and the power it gives them.

[taliesinb]

Exactly. More concisely put than I was able to!

[twobits]

Exactly. "For most germans". That's the truth. There is no germany, and no greece. You, a simple tax payers, me, a simple (greek) tax payer, all tax payers in europe, are paying for the german and french banks. Deutsche bank, for example, is not "most germans". Etc.

[euccastro]

Re: the French position wrt the Euro, you'd be surprised:

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/12/26/6265/