Dawn

Dawn

Thursday, November 10, 2011

EU SPECIAL

The car-crash which is the eurozone is now hurtling down a steep slope and those with the power to take the decisions to stop it - to permit quantitative easing, I guess - don't appear willing to do so. For which read the German government. Threatening a different sort of European destruction from the last time round but destruction all the same. With chaos to follow, it's universally predicted.

Our Ambrose has put on paper that the USA and China should combine their political and economic forces to compel Germany to see their particular view of reason but one wonders how possible this is. And how successful it would be if they tried it. I guess they do have the combined might to strong-arm Germany to commit what it sees as folly. An accurate view from their narrow Teutonic perspective but rather less so for the EU and the world at large. In the context of the global economy, a provincial stance.

Here's Ambrose this morning on the subject of Germany's stance. There appears to be a glimmer of hope - Hans Redeker from Morgan Stanley said the ECB must cap yields at 6.5pc by soaking up an "unlimited supply" of Italian bonds if necessary. "At the end of the day, we all know what the ultimate solution is going to be. They are going to have to monetise," he said. This does not seem likely yet. On Tuesday, Germany's two ECB members warned that the bank must not stray into debt monetisation or start quantitative easing, though there are at last signs that parts of the German establishment are starting to think creatively.

Incidentally, when (ex?)reader Moscow and I used to cross swords on the EU and, more so, the eurozone, he was wont to accuse me of not just being sceptical but of actually wanting them both to fail. This is nonsense and about as daft as saying anyone who predicts a disaster, say an earthquake, wants it to happen. The consequences of the eurozone collapsing or even morphing into something more manageable and sensible are clearly going to be so bad for the global economy, you would have to be beyond stupid to actually want them to happen simply to prove yourself right.

Like Ambrose, I hope that the German government, despite being the only sensible one around, is dragooned into doing what is wrong for them but right for others. As someone has written - You created this monster and you benefitted greatly from it. Now pay the price. In euros. Lots and lots of them.

I published a late post last night, on Spain. Scroll down if you haven't seen it.

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