What agenda do I have - except being long EURUSD right now? German finance minister Peer Steinbrück is attending the G7 now, and calling for more transparency and trust in the international financial system. The IMF leader has called for an IMF-controlled international financial system... hehe, but that would just extend totalitarian control. jprad, of course - the disparity in currencies in the EU is exactly because there is a strong scepticism - my point all along, if you read what I wrote instead of just browsing it. The healthy scepticism makes a more rigid system work, with formal separation between varying economic sovereignty aspects. The balanced view of the EU between its comprising nations, is totally different to the federal system and blind trust within the US among its states. Of course there are cultural and historical reasons for this "lack of blind trust", and that is why a more formal trust is being used in the EU - i.e more "business-like". Philosophically, I am much closer to anarcho-capitalism than any other described "belief system" for an economy. That means that I see contractual consent as very important. I also see this for the democratic processes - consent. That does not mean that I favour "winner takes all", because I support a direct democracy with formal trust. The world is not bivalent - but multi-faceted and a complex of intersecting systems of varying, dynamic influence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_trust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_bivalence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_of_truth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-level_utilitarianism I do not hide my views, have no "hidden agenda" - and welcome anyone to discuss my views - I enjoy the chat.
Sorry, this is typical US bullshit. Part of EU countries - especially the most poor from new EU members /btw, Slovakia will be last membe of EU zone since 1st jan/ simple can not step in EU zone because they do not fit economical criteria /deficit, inflation, etc/. Some of the well developed EU members like Denmark or Sweden simple feel that they are economically stronger than EU average and moreover there is love to old currency - and therefore are not in EU zone. But mostly is Euro taken positive - no problems by travelling and business. One note plus. We have in EU problems those started in USA - but if we lookon EU as whole there are many countries when these problems are minimal. In average we are less affected USA - from many reasons. Until now every financial crisis started in USA but at the end rest of world ate it much more. This time it will be different. We are not living on credit as much as you in USA. We are not happy about economy in USA. Only worldwide coordinate effort can overcome it without really bad consequences. But at first less affected EU countries need help more affected EU countries. Oh, and I believe most sympathic value EUR/US is 1:1. You need work a lot achieve it.
Only a few weeks ago the German's were discounting this as a US-centric problem. Then Hypo Real blew up and out there waiting to explode is Deutsche Bank with an exposure thought to be around 80% of Germany's GDP. Of course they want transparency now, because they've begrudgingly had to admit to themselves that they're as much a part of this mess as the Swiss, UK and the rest of the G7 bloc is. Of course you do, since it reads so nicely in a book. In practice, a direct democracy simply doesn't scale with the population. It leads to a tyranny of the majority against minorities, be it religion, political belief, race or what have you. "Formal trust?" You can't formalize anything without a system of control in place to keep it from breaking down.
I betchya I know tenfolds more about computational trust, electronic voting, voting fraud and democratic philosophy, processes than you do... If you read some of the - at least 50 - posts I have written here on ET about trust-models, you will see that I know what I am talking about. If you want to discuss that - respond to one of the threads I have about this type of formalized trust models. Also, Pholeuon is right about the formal parameters and requirements for entering the Euro currency system - which e.g the UK opted out of. Poland is now trying to get their economy under control so that they can be eligible to enter. That will likely rise wages and standard of living a lot in Poland.
Black Wednesday was not global crisis. It is missing word global in my sentnence but if I have financial crisis at home I am not spreading it out. So remind me about global financial crisis that did not started in USA. Btw, Soros is citizen of which country?
I too have been hearing about troubles with the Euro. I don't know about it disappearing completely, but I think par between the EUR and USD is entirely possible, if not the EUR falling even further than that. I'm definitely taking a hard look at a short EUR/USD trade.
EUR is too important - it will not be allowed to fail. that said, if the crisis does not get sorted out soon, there will be a lot of craptalk like this thread - and EUR will suffer. perception is reality in these times...
Sure you do, all I need to do is trust you, right? There's nothing technological or ideological that can prevent a coalition of like-minded people from attempting a power grab. Short of the entire world's population achieving collective consciousness, the best we can hope for is a system that can detect bad behavior and punish the instigators.
Oh, so you're going to blame an entire country for one individual that was able to game a flawed system to his advantage? And, don't try to weasel out of this by inserting "global" into it. Any financial crisis that transcends a country's border and affects one or more other country's is an international financial crisis. There have been plenty in the past that didn't originate within, or was caused by the U.S.