Just what has Euro left

[just john]

Which road will Nick and Dave take?, Cheap holidays? or is it time to cut loose and save that ridiculous subsidy Britain pays while France thumbs its nose ? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/bill_emmott/article7131185.ece

[NormanH]

Perhaps, but despite the doom and gloom about the Euro, the pound, with all the weight of Thatcher behind it, doesn't seem to manage to soar:

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh80/bfb_album/Historicaldata-currencycharts-HiFXP.jpg

[Frederick]

Interesting BBC this morning comment that the Euro was always an experiment .The playing of politics with it means it will never work. No country is prepared to hand total control to the central bank and follow its direction so its doomed to fail ..Germany will not pay out to save any more countries and her relatiionship with France is breaking up over it ...Bumpy days ahead was about all that could be said for it .

[just john]

Economists prediction terminal after investors abandon the euro?  Euro-will-be-dead-in-five-years.html

[woolybanana]

It would though be an error to underestimate the political will to make it work, so do not be surprised to see an attempt by Brussels to take over financial management of European nations' finances, though very much on German terms, in order to keep the € alive. Though whether this will lead to some countries either defaulting or being kicked out of la monnaie unique remains to be seen.

By the way, there have been rumours that German is reprinting Deutshmarks like crazy. Hmmmmm

[Frederick]

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-new-euro-2010-6     Here we go again !...

[Quillan]

[quote user="woolybanana"]

It would though be an error to underestimate the political will to make it work, so do not be surprised to see an attempt by Brussels to take over financial management of European nations' finances, though very much on German terms, in order to keep the € alive. Though whether this will lead to some countries either defaulting or being kicked out of la monnaie unique remains to be seen.

By the way, there have been rumours that German is reprinting Deutshmarks like crazy. Hmmmmm

[/quote]

There are a lot of people, banks, financial institutions who would like to see the Euro fail. I seem to remember they said the same sort of things when people in Greece and a couple of other countries said they wanted their own currency back.

The comment about the Deutschmark actually goes back to when Germany put up the bulk of the money for Greece "Berliners dream of return to deutschmark".

The real problem as I see it is that the financial people don't really have a clue whats happening and what will happen in the future. The more ideas you can throw up in the air means that one will surly land the right way up then they can say 'I told you so'.

Here's a question you won't get them to answer, I have a pension pot worth just over £2M at the moment. I want to get excellent secure growth on it for the next 5 years, where should I put it and what should I expect as a return? Will they personally guarantee the amount so if it falls short they will top up the difference. If one of them agrees I shall be only to happy to hand over my money.

 

[woolybanana]

And I thought of you as a penniless innkeeper, Quillan!

[Quillan]

Well you know what they say Wooly, money makes money, well it did until Mr Brown got his hands on my pension pot.. [:'(]

[Gluestick]

[quote user="Quillan"]

The real problem as I see it is that the financial people don't really have a clue whats happening and what will happen in the future. The more ideas you can throw up in the air means that one will surly land the right way up then they can say 'I told you so'.[/quote]

By "Financial People",Q, I believe they ought properly to be divided into three groups: firstly market-makers, banks, speculators and manipulators, who, just like marketing departments when asked to forecast the future of their product area, invariably simply quote, verbatim, what their own internal plan and strategies has been predicated on.

Even where such is horribly incorrect!

Second, one has the "Teenage Scribblers" as Nigel Lawson once described them.

Finally there are the decent analysts: whose forecasts tend to be rather more broad brushed than the spot on "predictions" of the first two groups.

Since Snake and Super Snake failed: and the ERM almost failed and was rather rapidly transmuted into ERMII, with a huge slackening of the permitted divergence bands, without which panic surgery ERM would also have collapsed in disaray (Which allowed Italy and Ireland to not only remain, but to get themselves into the fiscal mess they see now: and also allowed Italy to hugely fudge its fiscal numbers for entry into Euro flying false colours), it must be accepted that the employment of ECU to set tolerated divergence from a mean value at one point in a dynamic economic cycle, as a benchmark for each participating state's entry currency value to the Euro, was a cumbersome political "One Size Fits All" bit of expendiency.

To attempt and meld such a disparate rag bag of economies into one single unit of value, where each presented with wildly different economies, fiscal structures, levels of bureacractic effectiveness and etc, was simply a prototypical politician's pipe dream.

But, since EMU (Economic and Monetary Union) was a core plank of the ideological plans, prior to the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, it was tabled, it was a political ideolgues fantasy so it had to, eventually, be realised.

Practical or not.

Taking away each separate member states ability to employ both money supply and core interest rate in order to regulate their separate economies in a micro sense, was idiotic: as they all operated fiat currencies.

As I wrote at the time, if one wanted to meld 15 Switzerlands together, then it would work: however, if one had 15 Switzerlands, what would be the point?

The Euro will just about endure - for the time being: as long as the economic leader states are happy to continually deficit finance the emergent economies and the fiscally scrambled states, such as the PIIGS: and more critically, the ex collective economy states of the old soviet bloc.

This then begs the question, "How long will the German, Dutch, French etc taxpayer and voter be prepared to tolerate this circumstance?"

Unless it is until ALL Eurozone states enjoy an income expectancy and lifestyle like Germany's: or Germany's has fallen to the same as say,  then Slovakia, Slovenia and soon, Estonia, Latvia and Lithunia (Who are running in under ERMII), then the system cannot work.

[quote]Here's a question you won't get them to answer, I have a pension pot worth just over £2M at the moment. I want to get excellent secure growth on it for the next 5 years, where should I put it and what should I expect as a return? Will they personally guarantee the amount so if it falls short they will top up the difference. If one of them agrees I shall be only to happy to hand over my money.

 

[/quote]

You might manage to obtain a "Guarantee": however how likely is it the guarantor will still be around to honour its warranty?

Otherwise, talk to a Swiss private client bank/money manager, like Robo Bank, e.g.

 

[Gluestick]

Just to add to the foregoing, some interesting comment from the NYT.

Comment:

[just john]

New report fears misdiagnosis means that stop-gap rescue package will fail

 AXA-fears-fatal-flaw-will-destroy-eurozone

[krusty]

So what do other forum members think , keep savings in sterling or euros ?

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

I'm keeping mine in Aussie dollars.

[Jimmy]

[quote user="krusty"]So what do other forum members think , keep savings in sterling or euros ?[/quote]

What savings would that be then? Do you mean the money we have used to keep bread on the table for the last 3 years?