I haven't read all of your article yet but my first thought is that the European Union should have remained a trading partnership (maybe a bit like BRICS). The Common Market was formed just after the war I think out of the Coal and Steel Union. Britain joined in 1973 as I recall and soon after many of our beautiful apple orchards in southeast England were dug up because they weren't competitive due to the varying size of the apples. There were also these crazy meat, butter and other "mountains" and wine lakes as they call them or was it milk lakes? I can't remember now. It all seemed crazy then and it sure is crazy now. Perhaps it should have stayed as the original six countries that formed it in the first place, but then the politics crept in and it became what it is today. A frigging disaster.
Non si tratta solo di problemi finanziarii ma di qualcosa di assai più grave: l'U.E. è lo strumento nelle mani dei governi degli U.S.A., o meglio, di chi li manovra, con il quale ci rapinano, ci minacciano, ci controllano. Bisogna prenderne atto, ormai.
Before the Euro, Germany had a strong currency (the Mark), France had a less strong one, and Italy a weak one, subject to frequent devaluations. A good analogy is that of shoes : with the Euro, all countries must run the race with the same size of shoes. So the shoes are a perfect fit for Germany; much too small for France and even smaller for Italy... Unsurprisingly this doesn't work equally well for every country.
No strategic devaluation is a big plus for the Euro, in my little red book. "Devaluation" is just newspeak/libspeak for "let's make workers pay for big companies' competitiveness".
The huge problem with that kind of critique is that, unless you live in a microstate, e.g. Singapore or Hong Kong, you ALWAYS have different regions with different economic needs. When Italy had the Lira, the Lira did not work the same way for Northern Italy (export oriented, low unemployment, high salaries area) and Southern Italy (high import, high unemployment, low salaries area). However none ever asked to have two different (or more) Liras. None asks for half a dozen dollars for all the different areas of the USA (Silicon Valley and Manhattan have very different needs from Alabama), or for Russia, or for China, or for any other nation really, where this problem is even stronger than it is in Europe.
A weak currency can be a problem, no matter your policy; a strong currency never is, if you have good policies.
Nobody pretends that devaluating the Euro would help; the Euro must simply go away, and national currencies make a comeback.
The problem is that generally, no one in Paris really complains about paying taxes to build roads in Corsica. Even Germans didn't complain that much to pay for the former DDR. Though they paid dearly, it's not enough, as most Ossies are extremely unhappy with the economic situation, and 35 years and countless billions euro later spent, are still in a much worse situation than their Western compatriots (and vote en masse for AfD as a result).
However, Germans and Dutch aren't ready to pay taxes to finance Romania or Estonia. Not at the required scale, anyway. The problem is like German reunification, but at a continental scale. It can't work. It won't work.
I haven't read all of your article yet but my first thought is that the European Union should have remained a trading partnership (maybe a bit like BRICS). The Common Market was formed just after the war I think out of the Coal and Steel Union. Britain joined in 1973 as I recall and soon after many of our beautiful apple orchards in southeast England were dug up because they weren't competitive due to the varying size of the apples. There were also these crazy meat, butter and other "mountains" and wine lakes as they call them or was it milk lakes? I can't remember now. It all seemed crazy then and it sure is crazy now. Perhaps it should have stayed as the original six countries that formed it in the first place, but then the politics crept in and it became what it is today. A frigging disaster.
Serious question: why not using GDP, PPP?
Reference: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locations=EU-US
Europe is the USA.
Everything I know from here in France: NO difference between countries, all marketable goods are the same.
I do notice that Italy is doing (not badly) because they are courageous, artistic people.
France forgot what they were good at (and it isn't food). Painters/artists were a phenomenon now the French know nothing about art. Why is that?
Non si tratta solo di problemi finanziarii ma di qualcosa di assai più grave: l'U.E. è lo strumento nelle mani dei governi degli U.S.A., o meglio, di chi li manovra, con il quale ci rapinano, ci minacciano, ci controllano. Bisogna prenderne atto, ormai.
Before the Euro, Germany had a strong currency (the Mark), France had a less strong one, and Italy a weak one, subject to frequent devaluations. A good analogy is that of shoes : with the Euro, all countries must run the race with the same size of shoes. So the shoes are a perfect fit for Germany; much too small for France and even smaller for Italy... Unsurprisingly this doesn't work equally well for every country.
I can understand this as an analogy and you are correct.
What is it that we have done in Europe? The answer is we have tried to be like the US.
Does not work in Europe mostly because we do NOT all want the same?
We do not want the same because we aren't the same. What's in common between Portugal and Estonia ?
Exactly. Dismantle the EU
No strategic devaluation is a big plus for the Euro, in my little red book. "Devaluation" is just newspeak/libspeak for "let's make workers pay for big companies' competitiveness".
The huge problem with that kind of critique is that, unless you live in a microstate, e.g. Singapore or Hong Kong, you ALWAYS have different regions with different economic needs. When Italy had the Lira, the Lira did not work the same way for Northern Italy (export oriented, low unemployment, high salaries area) and Southern Italy (high import, high unemployment, low salaries area). However none ever asked to have two different (or more) Liras. None asks for half a dozen dollars for all the different areas of the USA (Silicon Valley and Manhattan have very different needs from Alabama), or for Russia, or for China, or for any other nation really, where this problem is even stronger than it is in Europe.
A weak currency can be a problem, no matter your policy; a strong currency never is, if you have good policies.
Nobody pretends that devaluating the Euro would help; the Euro must simply go away, and national currencies make a comeback.
The problem is that generally, no one in Paris really complains about paying taxes to build roads in Corsica. Even Germans didn't complain that much to pay for the former DDR. Though they paid dearly, it's not enough, as most Ossies are extremely unhappy with the economic situation, and 35 years and countless billions euro later spent, are still in a much worse situation than their Western compatriots (and vote en masse for AfD as a result).
However, Germans and Dutch aren't ready to pay taxes to finance Romania or Estonia. Not at the required scale, anyway. The problem is like German reunification, but at a continental scale. It can't work. It won't work.