Trouble brewing in Euroland

purch

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9f80f414-e0da-11dd-b0e8-000077b07658.html

A eurozone country defaulting and leaving the euro is close to an unthinkable event. But Friday’s news from Standard & Poor’s that Greece and Ireland were on review for a possible downgrade, followed on Monday by Spain, left many thinking the unthinkable.

.........unthinkable to some, but not everyone :T

Generali

purch wrote: »

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9f80f414-e0da-11dd-b0e8-000077b07658.html

A eurozone country defaulting and leaving the euro is close to an unthinkable event. But Friday’s news from Standard & Poor’s that Greece and Ireland were on review for a possible downgrade, followed on Monday by Spain, left many thinking the unthinkable.

.........unthinkable to some, but not everyone :T

I hate to say I told you so so I won't.

Why should Greece and Germany's Governments be borrowing at the same rate of interest just because they're the member of the same club?

purch

I hate to say I told you so so I won't.

:rotfl:

It's taken about 12 years, but I might be right at last !!!!! :T :j :T

Generali

purch wrote: »

:rotfl:

It's taken about 12 years, but I might be right at last !!!!! :T :j :T

Ditto. Why should Stockholm and Lisbon want the same monetary policy? It's hard enough when it's applied to Sheffield and London!

carolt

So if the euro's down and the pound's down, who's up?

Time to invest in dollars, I suppose.

Generali

carolt wrote: »

So if the euro's down and the pound's down, who's up?

Time to invest in dollars, I suppose.

Singapore dollar perhaps? Maybe USD.

I would strongly advise against trying to guestimate FX rate movements unless you want to make a small fortune out of a large fortune.

BlondeHeadOn

Generali wrote: »

Singapore dollar perhaps? Maybe USD.

I would strongly advise against trying to guestimate FX rate movements unless you want to make a small fortune out of a large fortune.

My favourite business quote is from Richard Branson, who said (something along the lines of) that "the quickest way to become a millionaire is to be a billionaire and buy an airline...."

Or to be a billionaire and try to guestimate FX rate movements?

mizzbiz

I could never understand how Greece was going to last long term in the Euro currency zone. I lived there for a year and saw the damage it caused to the economy.

For example, for a coffee you could expect to pay 2 euro, which worked out about the same as an average coffee in england. Before the euo, a coffee would be around 200 Drachma. Now considering you get about 350 drachma to the euro, this is massive inflation. WHen you compare this to the wages (I got 700 euros PM for working a 56 hour week (which is quite high pay for Corfu), something has gone badly wrong.

I really felt sorry for the Greeks and saw them struggle to buy everyday items that were affordable before the Euro.

A similar thing can be said of when I lived in holland. Let's use the coffee example... prior to the Euro, you could get a decent coffee for 3 Gulden, less than a pound. Now it is 2 Euros for a coffee in Holland, same as in France, Germany, Greece, Portugal etc. You see the problem?

chris_spackman

Well if there is going to be a little trouble in Euro Land i would like to start taking bets as to what Brown and his little new chum whom he brought back from the dead will make of it. ' lets make people think that joining the Euro would be a good idea to ty and beat off an economic trouble'

Unlucky Brown