Dear european compatriot, it's not that easy. They took debts, and they have creditors that want their money back. Money or goods, or whatever they own. Greek PM said they risk to lose sovereignty. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20091209/tbs-greece-says-debt-threatens-nation-pr-5268574.html So maybe I wasn't joking about Greece becoming the next German Laender.
Might I add the total lack of sound economic thinking? BTW why are the 'visionaries' who see the euro collapsing always Americans?
So Germany conquers Europe just like what the Fuhrer wanted 70 yrs ago. They should have submitted earlier.
Since leaving the Euro would be equivalent to a sovereign default anyway (and treated as such by the markets), and would have much worse additional downsides, what incentive would they have to do it? IMO it's a very slim chance, any independent Irish or Greek currency would be crucified immediately after Euro exit, and throw the countries into economic chaos. This reminds me of all those people who kept shorting Eurolira and BTPs against Euribor and Bunds, all the way up to monetary union, on the basis that the EMU/Euro would "collapse" or countries like Italy, Greece, Spain wouldn't qualify. Those speculators were simply clueless about the political realities of Europe at the time. IMHO the EU would always bail out a fringe country rather than see one exit and endanger the whole European project, and no fringe country would exit the Euro for economic reasons alone.
the euro was the first step towards sovereignty loss. now that they're in an unrecoverable indebtedness situation they'll have to sell out the crown jewels at discount. after privatization of most of the country's cash machines, i.e. utilities, what else they can offer to please their saviors? it looks like the keepers of the euro zone will ask draconian measures like cutting social welfare and dramatic cuts in government spending. how they accomplish that without starting a full scale civil war, is what puzzles me.
Remember the Germans pushed for the EU and EUR monetary union as a guarantor of "long-lasting peace" in continental Europe. This shit runs deep in Germany. Look how their pumped a cool trillion EUR into Eastern Germany, with nothing to show for. They will pay any price to keep their pipe dreams alive.
That was the plan long ago. Why do you think they created EU. The germans are a smart race, they will adopt to the conditionds to create the their ultimate race. Before it was weapons and military might now its the economic might. Things never change.