The euro zone is proving to be a marriage of incompatible partners. A
June 1 article in the UK Telegraph titled "The Triumph of Margaret
Thatcher: Why Europe's Love Affair with the European Project Is Ending"
reported that two-thirds of 9,000 respondents thought that having the
euro as their single currency was a mistake.
For the Greeks, the euro love affair is over, but breaking up is hard to do. Defaulting on their debts will force them out of the euro zone and back to issuing drachmas, which could get brutally devalued by speculators as soon as they are traded on foreign exchange markets.
Fortunately, there are alternatives to an ugly divorce. The treaties binding the 17 member nations are just a set of rules, entered into by mutual agreement, and rules can be bent, broken or stretched, especially in crises. The European Central Bank (ECB) has already broken a litany of rules to save the banks, and so has the Federal Reserve, which found multiple ways to do what it initially said it couldn't do to save Wall Street in 2008. Rules that can be bent for banks can be bent for the people - not just the Greeks, but the Irish, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and others lined up behind them.
Here are some creative alternatives that have been proposed.
Read more: http://truth-out.org/news/item/9611-greece-and-the-euro-50-ways-to-leave-your-lover
For the Greeks, the euro love affair is over, but breaking up is hard to do. Defaulting on their debts will force them out of the euro zone and back to issuing drachmas, which could get brutally devalued by speculators as soon as they are traded on foreign exchange markets.
Fortunately, there are alternatives to an ugly divorce. The treaties binding the 17 member nations are just a set of rules, entered into by mutual agreement, and rules can be bent, broken or stretched, especially in crises. The European Central Bank (ECB) has already broken a litany of rules to save the banks, and so has the Federal Reserve, which found multiple ways to do what it initially said it couldn't do to save Wall Street in 2008. Rules that can be bent for banks can be bent for the people - not just the Greeks, but the Irish, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and others lined up behind them.
Here are some creative alternatives that have been proposed.
Read more: http://truth-out.org/news/item/9611-greece-and-the-euro-50-ways-to-leave-your-lover
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