Should Britain Join the Euro?

mellowtimes

michaels wrote: »

The current crisis is demonstrating what a bad idea the euro is and it is being taken as an excuse to join...hello?

Lets take Ireland as an example - joining the Eur brought them too low interest rates (the rate is set for Europe as a whole. not individual countries as there is only one rate) resulting in a huge boom and now a massive hangover, even worse than us - and of course they can not adjust interest rates to cushion the downturn either. So can they use a fiscal boost instead? No, there are rules against this to prevent individual countries running up huge debts that are gaurenteed by all EUR countries.

The crisis has demonstrated why european countries need their own interest rates. The UK may have suffered but that is because our interest rates were too low at 5.5% - imagine what the property boom would have been like with rates at the EUR level of 4% peak!

Please someone explain to me why they think it is a good idea.

Why not split it even further then ? What if the North of England or Scotland or Wales would benefit from having a different interest rate from the South East of England.

I don't understand why the interest rates should be set differently according to arbitary lines on a map

luckyfool

Exactly. You could say exactly the same things about the US, with central interest rates set which apply across all 50 states, with dramatically different growth rates and economies.

opinions4u

Anything that gives more control of our affairs to outsiders who have to put the collective interests of other nations first is a bad idea.

mellowtimes

opinions4u wrote: »

Anything that gives more control of our affairs to outsiders who have to put the collective interests of other nations first is a bad idea.

Or as someone from, say, Liverpool coud argue - "Anything that gives more control of our affairs to outsiders who have to put the collective interests of other cities first is a bad idea."

What's the difference ?

opinions4u

mellowtimes wrote: »

Or as someone from, say, Liverpool coud argue - "Anything that gives more control of our affairs to outsiders who have to put the collective interests of other cities first is a bad idea."

What's the difference ?

Well, at least Liverpool would have an outside chance of being considered as one of a dozen major UK cities. Rather than being a piddly 1 of 300 European cities.

Fred1_2

indierocker85 wrote: »

I can't believe how close the results are, does nobody care about the sovereignty of our native currency sterling?

I don't. In my country we don't have a native currency. Not even a rebadged Sterling like Gib or the Channel Island. No we have the insulting logo "Bank of England" on our notes. Welsh interest rates are set in London - makes no difference to me if they're set in Brussels, both are foreign capitals as far as I'm concerned.

All I'm interested in is which would be better for the Welsh economy - the euro, Sterling or a new Welsh currency. No one is proposing the last option and I doubt it would be the best one. I think we have to ally oursleves to a bigger stronger neighbour economically and if we have to choose between England and the EU, I'm tending to favour the EU.

mellowtimes

opinions4u wrote: »

Well, at least Liverpool would have an outside chance of being considered as one of a dozen major UK cities. Rather than being a piddly 1 of 300 European cities.

You mean like eg Taunton is a piddly 1 of hundreds of UK towns. Why shouldn't the South West have it's own currency so Taunton has "an outside chance of being considered as one of a dozen major South West towns"

Do you see what I am driving at ? Forget about the nationalistic/patriotic side of things - why should there be these arbitrary distinctions between areas at an economic/financial level ?

Happy_Camper_3

Ireland's prices nearly doubled when they entered they got rid of their pound for the euro. Supermarkets rounded everything up to the nearest ten, and most others were even less scrupulous. I've heard the same from Germans. It will happen in England too. Stay well clear of that euro. Keep your sovereignty.

luckyfool

Happy_Camper wrote: »

Ireland's prices nearly doubled when they entered they got rid of their pound for the euro. Supermarkets rounded everything up to the nearest ten, and most others were even less scrupulous. I've heard the same from Germans. It will happen in England too. Stay well clear of that euro. Keep your sovereignty.

Wow. We keep hearing this, and yet most things seemed to be much cheaper in Germany on my recent visit. How can that be?

Fred1_2

I can understand prices in creasing in countries which had currencies worth less than the euro. €1.50 sounds less than DM2.00 but was actually more. But the iraish pound was worth more than the euro so prices would automatically have looked more expensive even if they stayed the same. I would have thought that would have kept the prices rises to a minimum and maybe even had a deflationary effect.