Any possible solutions to the European Debt Crisis?

[Alby_da_Wolf]

kowenicki said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

kowenicki said:

radishhead said:
The Euro was a terrible idea from the beginning

much worse than that... it was a con and a lie for political gain.

I both agree and disagree. The Euro as it is is horrible, but it could have been a lot better, it's a good idea horribly realised. About avoiding out of control expenditure by irresponsible governments, the rules should have been more elastic, with broader parameters, to allow more freedom of manoeuvring, but enforced more strictly. OTOH, the actual situation, strict rules, but enforced in a lax way until it was too late, just encouraged accounting tricks, while they blocked too many investments, even important ones, and in the end just did harm.

And let's not go into denial, when things didn't go so bad yet, Germany itself tolerated "creative finance" by some governments in order to get them into the eurozone.

Thats the con and lie I am referring to.  Add bribery to the list too... whole nations whose economies were nowehere near robust enough or "clean" enough were allowed in with the promise of greater prosperity.  Greece and Portugal for example... corrupt and weak economies all to broaden the audience for German exports and build the Euro brand.

Yes, now that you specified what you were referring to, I agree, but I'd add that it was also for economic reasons, Germany was so eager to nullify the competitive advantage weak currencies gave to some countries, that it ignored or underestimated every other possible drawback.