[np] Euro crisis

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Yesterday evening I saw Kenneth Rogoff on 'BBC Hardtalk' and he was 
saying pretty much the same
as George Soros. Rogoff, too, said that the German public has to face 
that Germany will have to pay
for it all. Greece, Portugal, Ireland. Maybe Italy and Spain. Even if 
some or all would have to leave the eurozone. As Soros, with view on the 
then necessary restructuring of the banking system, writes:

"All this would cost money. Under existing arrangements no more money is 
to be found and no new arrangements are allowed by the German 
Constitutional Court decision without the authorization of the 
Bundestag. There is no alternative but to give birth to the missing 
ingredient: a European treasury with the power to tax and therefore to 
borrow. This would require a new treaty, transforming the EFSF into a 
full-fledged treasury.

That would presuppose a radical change of heart, particularly in 
Germany. The German public still thinks that it has a choice about 
whether to support the euro or to abandon it. That is a mistake. The 
euro exists and the assets and liabilities of the financial system are 
so intermingled on the basis of a common currency that a breakdown of 
the euro would cause a meltdown beyond the capacity of the authorities 
to contain. The longer it takes for the German public to realize this, 
the heavier the price they and the rest of the world will have to pay.

The question is whether the German public can be convinced of this 
argument."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/oct/13/does-euro-have-future/

I'd answer the question rather with  "No". While the leading politicians 
- from Merkel to Joschka Fischer - are propagating now 'The United 
States of Europe', 80% of the population are decidedly with the 
Constitutional Court. The budget right of the Bundestag is the key to 
Germany's national sovereignty.
Nobody wants to throw this away in order to become Europe's cashcow 
forever. Germany painfully reconstructed its social system (Agenda 2010, 
Hartz IV), and even having done so it's not at all sure whether this 
works, when you look at the demographics. How to convince Fritz Average 
that it's a good idea to pay and pay and pay for other countries which 
didn't do their socio-economic homework? I simply don't see that. And 
people are fed up with Merkel's inflationary use of the word 
"alternativlos" (without alternative), they just don't buy it anymore. 
So I seriously doubt whether the German public can be convinced of the 
argument Soros, Rogoff and others are unfolding. Of course I could be wrong.

"There is time, if you need the comfort, to touch the person next to 
you, or to reach between your own cold legs ... or, if song must find 
you, here's one They never taught anyone to sing ..." (GR, p. 760):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7r3KK8HgOQ