Finanspakten og Sentralbankens pengetrykking ga eurosonen et pusterom. Men de hvilte på årene og nå er problemene ved å innhente dem igjen. Problemet er strukturelt: euroen kan ikke fungere likt for alle, noen er dømt til å tape. Det er Tyskland som vinner og landene i sør som taper. Hvor lenge kan det fortsette? Tysk hegemoni er ikke populært, selv om det skjer i fredelige former.

Fredelige? Kan man snakke om fredelig i Hellas, eller Spania der arbeidsledigheten er over 50 % for unge og 23 generelt. Og det skal bli verre.

This morning, Italian one-year bond yields are rising again for the first time since November. The European Central Bank’s policy of pumping ever more money into the banking system is stalling. A new bailout approaches. You can tell this because the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, says it’s not. He’s speaking this afternoon to try to reassure investors that his government is fiscally sound. “Without a doubt, a good part of Spain’s future is at stake,» he told senators yesterday, as he called for more spending cuts.

The Bank of Spain expects GDP to fall by 1.5 per cent this year, while the IMF thinks that the country might have two more years of recession. One village south of Barcelona has resorted to growing marijuana to sell to pay back its debts. Austerity is not helping – it is pushing Spain ever further into recession, as any undergraduate economist could have predicted.
And the thing is, this is entirely the result of Europe’s insane, one-size-fits-none economic policy. Before the start of the economic crisis in 2007, Spain had a government budget surplus of 2.2 per cent of GDP – so the problem is not Spanish government overspending.

Det hullet Spania er falt ned i, blir bare dypere og det skal bli vanskelig å komme seg ut av det. Tyskland forstår ikke sin egen rolle, skriver Telegraphs Daniel Knowles.

The problem with the eurozone is fundamentally one of competitiveness. In short, Germany has too much of it; its wages are too low and its current account surplus is consequently too big. Since all things are relative, the result is that Spanish, Italian, Greek and Irish wages are all too high. Within the euro, either German wages must go up, or Spanish ones down. The Germans won’t budge, and so the Spanish must beat down wages with unemployment instead.

Hvorfor skulle tyskerne forstå, dvs. korrigere en situasjon de selv profiterer på? Det sitter langt inne å gi fra seg fordelene, og velgerne tror de har ofret sine skattepenger på late søreuropeere.

Armageddon venter.

Euro-Armageddon is still coming, and it’s the result of Europe’s insane, one-size-fits-none economic policy