Germany is propping up the southern flank, much like China (and others) are propping up the US. Germany is not going anywhere.
You're certainly allowed to have convictions that back your positions. If you didn't, I'm not sure what kind of a trader you would be. I think you'd better be well hedged.
One of the trade offs Germany received for agreeing to this latest bail out was Trichets chair going to Webber soon btw at least this is what media reports here.
Exactly. And there's a reason the ECB is located in Frankfurt, and not Brussels. If Germany left the Euro, the Southern states would default, re-emerge, and regain their productivity lost to Germany. Germany would actually be worse off. Germany has finally gotten her Reich. As a member of the EU, she can maintain her status. All this nonsense about them leaving is BS from the currency manipulators to knock around the Euro.
Independent of this rumor being true or not the writing is on the wall that create incentives for some Euro nations to leave the union. It is just a matter of time.
Ivan needs to do an IP trace on these locusts! Get the info over to Angela Merkel pronto! But seriously... I'm not saying that the Euro doesn't have its flaws or that the current management is doing a stellar job. But I do think many people in Europe take the Union seriously, even if begrudgingly. The history of Europe is full of bloodshed and tyrants. The EU is not a mere experiment, it is a new chapter for Europe. But as I said before... what they should do, or may ultimately be forced to do, is unleash the potential power of the over 10K tons of gold they have. Balance sheets would change overnight.
Destroying the Euro is part of the dollar survival plan. No alternative reserve currency can be allowed to emerge, especially when the Fed has a vault full of trash. My guess is that much of the PIIGS debt problem was a Trojan horse in the first place engineered by Goldman et al. to get the job done. Next they will have to attack gold.
I'll agree to the extent that there are currency wars being waged. But it's not clear who is behind what. At least not the big picture. My view: the days of one country having a fiat reserve currency are numbered. In the last twenty some years, the world has gotten a lot smaller, and resource extraction will not keep up. The days when one country can disproportianately consume the largest share of these resources in exchange for unsupportable paper debt are ending. If the US wants to retain a global dollar standard, it will have to revert to a gold backed currency - or some form of gold backing. If the US wants to attack gold - it will backfire. China, India, and Russia would be more than willing to watch gold plummet... they would go on a buying binge, with negative long term consequences for the US and EU. The currency wars are a sideshow. Gold is the main event. It's not discussed much because of the temporary "truce." The truce is this: Euroland and the US don't want gold to go too high too fast, least their currencies get devalued too quickly. Russia, India, and China don't want gold to go too high, too fast, for a different reason - they are in accumulation mode and don't need the competition. Very interesting times...
Germany subsidizing the PIIGS actually isn't much different than this.. http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/266.html It is just that we take it for granted here.