European Debt Crisis and the Euro

Call it currency karma. The EU's obsession with Americanizing Europe has led to just that: failure. For centuries, each European nation had its own currency, and while that may have inconvenienced businesspeople crossing borders, it worked just fine. In its desire to turn sovereign nations into the equivalent of states, the euro currency, in less than a decade, has become a financial mess, fragmenting relationships among nations it took decades to forge in the post WWII era. The wealthier nations in the EU, foremost Germany, are saddled with the burden of essentially bailing out Greece, which is on the edge of bankruptcy. A "spillover effect" also looms, as the status of Greece's debt has reached "junk level" according to the NY Times (April 28, 2010). Prior to the euro, poorer European nations could devalue their currency to boost exports when faced with financial difficulty. But the massive bureaucracy that has come with the euro--fourteen nations that all have to act in concert and with approval from Brussels--makes such an option obsolete. Now Spain and Portugal are right behind Greece in line. The response of Germany's president to the idea her country will play the role of continental welfare dispensary is somewhat understandable as well as predictably harsh and ethnocentric. The jist: "Germany has huddled together with its back to the financial storm" or something like that. My point is not a criticism of Germany but the foolish notions of the euro and the EU's America-envy complex. Europe has essentially abandoned a liberal economic system based on slow but sustainable growth, strong regulation of business, relative high taxation appropriated for health care, education, and infrastructure, and replaced it with a trans-national currency designed to rival and overtake the dollar as the dominant world currency. In effect, Europe got tired of being Europe and wanted to become like America--become superrich at any cost and phase out programs and policies that improve the quality of life of the people. Well, Europe is getting its wish to become just like America. Europe is going hard-core right wing and the euro promises continued protracted financial failure that will widen the divide between rich and poor countries and individuals.