Oh nein, wir sind in der Scheiße.

shortchanged_2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15291553

Looks like the Eurozone may have been a bit premature in putting up interest rates.

pqrdef

And the root cause of all this is German paranoia about inflation. They've always insisted on the euro being run like the Deutschmark, i.e. too strong a currency for the rest of the eurozone. If they'd allowed the euro to be a weaker currency from the start, as it needed to be, we wouldn't have got into this mess.

spadoosh

The germans have got finance down to a tee!! Why would germany joing/create the eurozone to make itself look weaker, now thats just silly! And i don't understand why it needs to be a weaker currency?! Still stronger than the sterling (compared to when the euro was first introduced) and think its fair to say most euro countries (exception being greece) appear to have a better understanding or at least seem more capable of handling a financial problems. We got a new government sayin we need to reduce the deficit blah blah blah. Well, we aint reduced it, were paying more and earning less. Think i'd rather have the backing of the german economy than good old dave and co

ILW

pqrdef wrote: »

And the root cause of all this is German paranoia about inflation. They've always insisted on the euro being run like the Deutschmark, i.e. too strong a currency for the rest of the eurozone. If they'd allowed the euro to be a weaker currency from the start, as it needed to be, we wouldn't have got into this mess.

The Germans have seen what out of control inflation can do. It was not a pretty sight.

shortchanged_2

spadoosh wrote: »

The germans have got finance down to a tee!! Why would germany joing/create the eurozone to make itself look weaker, now thats just silly! And i don't understand why it needs to be a weaker currency?! Still stronger than the sterling (compared to when the euro was first introduced) and think its fair to say most euro countries (exception being greece) appear to have a better understanding or at least seem more capable of handling a financial problems. We got a new government sayin we need to reduce the deficit blah blah blah. Well, we aint reduced it, were paying more and earning less. Think i'd rather have the backing of the german economy than good old dave and co

While I agree with most of what you say, the forecasts for Germany are now pointing ever more to the recession we are heading towards. If Germany is weak then the rest of Europe will certainly follow suit.

pqrdef

ILW wrote: »

The Germans have seen what out of control inflation can do. It was not a pretty sight.

We all saw it. We all learnt lessons from it. Only the Germans got paranoid.

We can all understand that drowning is a bad thing and learning to swim is a good idea. We don't need people who nearly drowned once thinking they're uniquely qualified to lecture us on the subject.

The Germans who lived through it are all dead or senile now anyway.

And the world has moved on. The gold standard is dead. It's dead because of the problems caused when the dam bursts after a currency has been artificially kept too strong for too long, instead of being allowed to float to its real value. The lesson to be learnt from German inflation is not that the euro should try to be a new gold standard. Quite the reverse.

ILW

pqrdef wrote: »

We all saw it. We all learnt lessons from it. Only the Germans got paranoid.

We can all understand that drowning is a bad thing and learning to swim is a good idea. We don't need people who nearly drowned once thinking they're uniquely qualified to lecture us on the subject.

The Germans who lived through it are all dead or senile now anyway.

And the world has moved on. The gold standard is dead. It's dead because of the problems caused when the dam bursts after a currency has been artificially kept too strong for too long, instead of being allowed to float to its real value. The lesson to be learnt from German inflation is not that the euro should try to be a new gold standard. Quite the reverse.

Did we?
BoE have said they are prepared to put up with inflation.