The plan to bounce us into the Euro gathers pace!

opinions4u

bazster wrote: »

If HMG announced one day that the pound/Euro exchange rate was to be fixed for evermore but that we'd keep the pound coins and notes then I doubt that all the tabloid-reading dopes-on-a-rope who want to "keep our pound" would even notice that we'd joined the Euro.

But the markets would notice.

Remember the success of the Exchange Rate Mechanism?

Mmmm ... worked a treat!

Leighthal

bandraoi wrote: »

At the moment, with bailouts in the billions, there are huge sums of non-money appearing, disappearing and jumping around in the markets. The volatility out there is incredible. It's already sunk one country - Iceland, and more may follow.

The biggest currencies are the most stable. The one's not so affected by an extra several billion moving here or there because it's only a fraction of the trade that takes place in them daily.

Sterling as a relatively small currency is vulnerable.

I thought Russia were in this catergory but they seem to be in trouble?

amcluesent

My old dad wasn't one for the EU. After a sherry or two he'd reminisce about how his only glimpse of Europe was through the bomb-sights of his Lancaster.

gozomark

Count_Dante wrote: »

The USA has a common currency across all states, some of which will no doubt have higher inflation than others. They live with it. Some regions of Britain will have higher inflation than others (e.g London). Big deal.

If we follow your argument to it's logical conclusion, why doesn't every town in Britain have it's own currency? Because it would be a ridiculous waste of resources.

I agree, it would be a waste of resourses - there is a theoretical ideal currency area - its bigger than the UK, but possibly smaller than the current eurozone

bandraoi

purch wrote: »

In the U.S.A. much of the "strain" is taken up by the free movement of Labour across State lines. States such as Florida & Arizona have seen huge influx's of people over the last 10/15 years, which has helped some of the Northern States where Industry and Jobs have disapeared cope with the economic changes.

This of course can happen in Europe, but the all too obvious discontent this causes in the member states that have to accomodate these "migrants" makes this less likely to happen.

There is very little discontent with migrants from the Euro member countries.
There is grumbling about, for instance, Polish workers, but they're not a member of the Euro.

The reason they're not a member of the Euro is because their economy hasn't converged sufficiently with the rest of the Eurozone countries. With the huge discrepancy there is a huge advantage for them to move countries, and so there is an oversupply.

If their economy was at a point where they could join the euro it's unlikely that the oversupply problems would happen.

gozomark

bandraoi wrote: »

There is very little discontent with migrants from the Euro member countries.
There is grumbling about, for instance, Polish workers, but they're not a member of the Euro.

The reason they're not a member of the Euro is because their economy hasn't converged sufficiently with the rest of the Eurozone countries. With the huge discrepancy there is a huge advantage for them to move countries, and so there is an oversupply.

If their economy was at a point where they could join the euro it's unlikely that the oversupply problems would happen.

I disagree -for that to be true, wages convergence would be required, and that isn't one of the convergence criteria - indeed Poland plans to join the Euro in 2012, and there is a good chance they will have reached the economic criteria - at that point wages will still be a fraction of those in the UK

KorkyKat

Had the BBC never shown "Dad's Army" and "Last Of The Summer Wine" we'd have rightfully joined the Euro Zone years ago. It's because of these stuffy, parochial programmes that we are adrift in a Morrison's supermarket trolley in the English Channel begging for pity off the French and our other Euro partners.

Never mind Ofcom leading enquiries into Ross et al., they should have one into why the BBC promote flat cap Britain.

Over to you Mr. Mannering.

gozomark

begging for pity off the French and our other Euro partners.

in what way is the UK begging ?

Incisor

amcluesent wrote: »

My old dad wasn't one for the EU. After a sherry or two he'd reminisce about how his only glimpse of Europe was through the bomb-sights of his Lancaster.

It is amazing. For years I thought that people were looking at Europe through blinkers. Now I see they are actually looking through bomb-sights.

Incisor

eeja wrote: »

Correct but could the simple reason be we are running and have been running a large deficit on our balance of trade for donkeys years ( leaving out of course those years we had a huge surplus of North Sea oil)

Spot on I think. We have been fooling ourselves by trying to keep the currency high to make the deficit look small - whereas, like the Germans we would have done better to keep the currency low so that domestic industry would meet demand and the deficit would not arise.