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Euro is like Obamacare, interesting concept that can’t work because of people

Euro is like Obamacare, interesting concept that can’t work because of people

Obamacare will not work.

Just like the Euro did not work.

Because of people.

Via The Telegraph, German euro founder calls for ‘catastrophic’ currency to be broken up:

Mr Lafontaine said he backed EMU but no longer believes it is sustainable. “Hopes that the creation of the euro would force rational economic behaviour on all sides were in vain,” he said, adding that the policy of forcing Spain, Portugal, and Greece to carry out internal devaluations was a “catastrophe”.

Mr Lafontaine was labelled “Europe’s Most Dangerous Man” by The Sun after he called for a “united Europe” and the “end of the nation state” in 1998. The euro was launched on January 1 1999, with bank notes following three years later. He later left the Social Democrats to found the Left Party.

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Comments

O’bambi-care was never intended to encourage rational behavior.

radiofreeca | May 6, 2013 at 6:00 pm

When “hope” is the foundation for your strategy, the plan rarely works out.

Not to mention the hubris to think that he could with a currency change the cultures of multiple nations – the USSR failed for the same reason. 70 years of propaganda, and no New Socialist Man. Or even hint of one.

Bruno Lesky | May 6, 2013 at 7:41 pm

Add immigration “reform” via Gang of 8 to list of unworkable policy. Because of people.

Eh. The euro wasn’t designed to murder people.

radiofreeca | May 6, 2013 at 8:42 pm

Before the Euro was approved, there was a somewhat famous conversation between one of the architects of the Euro, and someone who was opposed. The person opposed said that the Euro would lead to a Continent-wide economic disaster. And the pro-Euro person said that that was the point – the only way to force all the countries of Europe to give up their government budgetary independence was to have such a huge economic crisis, that they were left with no choice.

And here they are – just as planned. The only problem is, the architects of the Euro assumed that there would only be one choice when the crisis came: the countries would give up their sovereignty. Turns out nationalism is stronger than pan-Europeanism.

BannedbytheGuardian | May 6, 2013 at 8:51 pm

In early 2008 I had a family member working for a British firm in Greece. They were paid I pounds but could barely eke out a living with the exchange rate .

WTF I thought had Greece done to give It a higher standard of living than Britain ? The answer – nothing of course.

Criticise Britain as much as you want but it still is the World’s top 5/6 economy & has significant assets .

Currency madness . Britain can thank Margaret Thatcher who in the face of Eurofever managed to keep the sterling.

If Greece had had the Drachma they could not have had such a charade.

So easy in hindsight to say it was a catastrophe, when Margaret Thatcher had it pegged all along.

The story of the Euro is a paragon example of why progressive social policy ALWAYS fails.

Any plan can be conceptualized in a theoretical sense but the real test comes when the human element is injected. A couple of my favorite examples are lean manufacturing and just-in-time logistics.

Anyone in the field where these two are in practice will tell you of horror stories due to human failure. I could write a few thousand words myself in this regard.

O’bammycare goes one further… The political ingredient that ascertains ultimate failure from an efficiency point of observation.

Cheer up folks… Less than four years to go..

There were no shortage of warnings at the time. The idea of monetary union across a wide range of political systems and cultures had never been tried and the potential pitfalls were obvious (and most have indeed come to pass), but those who had been working toward a United Europe for decades would not be dissuaded from their utopian ideal.

If there were any hope for it, the ECB and EU Parliament would have taken steps early on to avoid fiscal hole-digging. Once bailouts became necessary it was already too late.

It always costs less to get into these grand experiments than to get out of them.