Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
["Pretty Boy Floyd", Woody Guthrie]
Krugman's requiem should be read.
To understand why I say this, you need to realize that most -- not all, but most -- of what you've heard about Greek profligacy and irresponsibility is false.
...
This is, and presumably was intended to be, an offer Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, can't accept, because it would destroy his political reason for being. The purpose must therefore be to drive him from office, which will probably happen if Greek voters fear confrontation with the troika enough to vote yes next week.
The purpose of war, of course, is to force out governance of a people and replace it with the victor's. Which is what Germany has set out to do. Portugal is likely next, but in due time Italy or Spain will be attacked. May be then France and the rest of the rich North will understand the gambit. Or may be not.
Also today, a bit of data regarding the power of having one's own currency:
Greece regularly devalued its old drachma, taking it to over 300 per dollar before it was replaced by the euro in 2002, from 30 to the dollar in the 1970s.
It's just such "shocks" that the industrial North, again mostly Germans and French, saw as avoidable with the Euro. Heads they win, tails the rest lose. What if Florida, New Mexico, and Arizona had been forced to go it alone in 2009? Or the banksters? Of course not. Follow the corp quarterlies, and the whining about "currency problem" is endless.
A cross-border currency without cross-border fiscalism could never work. Not even among "near" equals. Over time, the one with the slight edge will push ever more it's advantage. American Right Wingnuts, the Leona Crew, have been at it since Alzheimer Ronnie. They're playing the Long Con, and given politics is very short-sighted, that is their advantage.
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