Germay needs the weaker states in the Euro to make their economy work. http://morganisteconomics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/eurozone-is-polarised-economic-model.html
Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy Greece pressured to buy German armaments with bail-out loans Greece fought hard for independence from the Ottoman Empire, to then suffer under German occupation. As a result it ensures a strong modern defense system, but it is under undue pressure to buy armaments from Germany. ... According to the Jerusalem Post Greece is the second largest recipient of German weapon imports, after Turkey. http://digitaljournal.com/article/318237
For thousands of years, war was waged primarily to aquire things of value. Like gold, or fertile land or fresh water (access to rivers) or castles. In other words, the cost of the war was weighed against the benefit. Greece have nothing of value so why would Germany bother. America is the only country that wages war without the intent of making some type of return. And now the country is bankrupt. I think Germany have learned their lesson in this regard.
I think I will refrain from more facetious attempts to solving a problem. I was expecting, " Ha! that's one way to solve a structural problem if the Greeks wouldn't give up their sovereignty to remain in the zone!" Or more trial balloons will be sent up to get an idea of who or what posts on this part of the site.
True but the question is why the others bought into this scheme. Stupid men, deceived or committed treason? Because they basically sold out their nations to Germany. Greece had a mere 22% of GDP debt before it joined the old ECU in the 1970s. http://www.economicsinpictures.com/2011/09/greek-debtgdp-only-22-in-1980.html This is the proof of the zero-sum game. GIIPS deficit = Germany surplus: Source: Paul Krugman blog Germany orchestrated the largest wealth transfer in the history of humanity with a bogus currency union and now many millions suffer in Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, etc. Someone has suggested that Germany should go again through the Hague court, its politicians send to jail and the country must be broken to little pieces so it is not a threat to the world any longer. Although I do not agree, I understand why people are thinking these extremes.
Well, the politics of it does have to be understood. They wanted to unite Europe so as to not have another WWI/WWII thing happen to them. The idea was to keep Germany from dominating, and that was as true or even more true for Germany than it was for everyone else. They just didn't understand what a currency union is. Not a lot of people do, unfortunately. The US is a currency union that works because of a massive transfer apparatus that works behind the scenes to keep the country on a more or less even economic plain: just to take one glaring example that is now in the news, the FDIC transferred massive sums to the Southwest during the S&L debacle of the late eighties. No one sat around deciding that Arizona's state government was going to have to pay for Arizona's failed banks; if anyone had suggested such a thing, they would have been, justly, laughed at. Yet in Europe they are still deciding whether or not Spain has to pay for its failed banks, and whether if they directly rescue those banks they have to then retroactively give Ireland the same deal. The US didn't even have a real currency union until after the Civil War, and in Adam Smith's time the UK wasn't yet a currency union either: read The Wealth of Nations with an eye towards currency issues and you will realize this. The EU rushed things when it legislated the euro, and they knew it intuitively because in many cases they tried all kinds of subterfuges to get around public opinion and democratic process to put it through. Haste makes waste. And you really do have to understand what a currency union does to the economy of the area that shares that single currency. If you don't get that, you're just making trouble for yourself.