If you look up “Deutsche Mark” on the internet, you will find an abundance of definitions like this one from Wikipedia:
The Deutsche Mark … was the official currency of West Germany (1948–1990) and Germany (1990–2002) until the adoption of the euro in 2002.
Generally, Wikipedia is astonishingly quick about updating its entries. No celebrity can die without the online encyclopedia taking note of the fact within minutes. So I am surprised that the entry for the euro has not been edited to presage its impending demise.
My friend Charles Moore provided the essential news in the headline for his column for the Daily Telegraph yesterday:
The euro’s inevitable failure will be horrendous for all of us
Charles does more than cite the tsunami of debt rolling across the euro zone: we all know about the feckless Greeks, but what about the feckless, spendthrift Portuguese, Spaniards, and Italians? Will Germany (with some grumbling help from France) pony up to bail them out as well? (Not, of course, that they will call it a bailout, since the treaties that created “Europe” forbid direct bailouts of member states.) The Germans have been struggling for political respectability since 1945: paying off the debts of their profligate neighbors the way Earl of Emsworth paid off his son’s gambling debts was the price of admission. But is there a limit? Is there a point where the guilt/debt ratio is no longer fiscally, or psychologically, sustainable?
Many people, Charles Moore among them, believe that the line is near, if indeed it has not already been crossed. I am writing from Carcassonne and grumbling over the currency is palpable everywhere. “Il n’y a pas d’amour euro” reads a headline in Le Monde this morning: there is no love of the euro and what, the writer wonders, could make the single currency less unpopular? The fact that, as Charles reports, the German stock-market website Borsenews has begun pricing shares in Deutschmarks as well as euros suggests that the game is nearly up. (For a plausible scenario about how the end might come, see James Bennett’s splendid speculation: “The PIIGS Who Fell to Earth.”)
In the anxiety over the fate of the euro, two larger issues have often been lost sight of. One is the fact that both friends and foes of the euro have from the beginning understood that it could never prevail absent a vastly increased centralization of European power. The gamble with the euro was that a common currency would inevitably result in a shedding of “outmoded” forms of national identity in favor of the newly (if undemocratically) enfranchised European super state. So far, that hasn’t happened. Will the current economic crisis be the catalyst for the emergence of this Brussels-centric, authoritarian state? Or will it encourage ever greater centrifugal movement, tearing the euro zone apart? (Already there is talk of a “two-tiered” euro: one for the productive north, another for the dependent south. All euros are equal, but some are more equal than others.) My bet is on the second, but who knows?
The intellectuals have a taste for Grand Schemes and Comprehensive Plans. As this fails others will spring up to take its place. The paltry affairs of millions of citizens,families and modest enterprises of all sorts lack drama, vision and excitement.
There’s a reason for that.
Most of the so-called “intellectuals” have existed for their entire adult life in the bubble of academia, rather than in the real world where screwy plans have consequences. In academia, if it works on paper, the assumption is that it must work in the real world. The rest of us know better.
It’s legislation by pagination; it is the mistaken belief that passing official judgement on something is the end goal. One good example of this is the Columbian rescue of Betancourt from the Farc. On the day the Columbians made the rescue, the Eurocrats were busy passing legislation condemning her continued imprisonment. When they heard about the successful resolution to her years of captivity, many responded in anger.
You could also draw such a parallel with the statements of grave concern that the UN tosses out that have about as much effect as an official condemnation coming from the National Enquirer.
Reminds me of the liberals respond to their “renewable energy” schemes. When confronted with real world data showing their schemes don’t work, they respond by demanding more laws, which in their minds, will make them work.
Data are useless. They don’t even get the hint from Spain’s massive green jobs failure, which is a real “rubber meets the road” example.
A bit of a non sequitur: Buying The National Inquirer is a private, personal CHOICE, paid for at point of sale AND you know EXACTLY what it costs. and is not very expensive for the entertainment it provides. THE UN on the other hand is not voluntary personal choice for citizen, and costs massively for its existence. The costs expanding exponentially as it grows in favour among”leaders/intellectuals/puppydog politicians Whether or not the pronouncements from that body are effective in any real way, they certainly are effective for the members/bureaucrats/aides/support personnel of the agency for their royal life-styles. AND THEY ARE NOT ACCOUNTABLE/”diplomatic immunity”. AND need not be competent for any of the things it “undertakes”.AND it seems that not only does it grow in influence and costs, but seems to be eternal. If we don’t buy the National Inquirer, it goes out of business.We’re just ordinary people NOT elites who compel us to do their bidding. This used to be called at its mildest bondage. But now that word means a sexual thrill , no?
One central element of the “intellectuals’” grand schemes that often lead to the ruin of other peoples’ lives is that they are consultants and advisors to the movers and shakers of society. Earlier, and it appears justifiably, the “intellectuals” were confined to, or preferred,life in “ivory towers”/monasteries. Allowing the peons, peasants, serfs, workers,common folk … to get on with the mundane of living. Could it be that the damage has been done precisely because so much heed and praise has been heaped on “intellectuals” in the 20th century? Why “intellectual” rather than intelligent? Hints/suggestions in the name? Or God save us from Philosopher Kings, even with degrees from Harvard and other “elite” universities. Perhaps especially?
Might I suggest a dictum taught in my “Introduction to Engineering” class in college? It goes like this: “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there usually is.”
“So I am surprised that the entry for the Euro has not been edited to presage its impending demise.”
Wikipedia is not a crystal ball.
And a sense of humor is absolutely not an indication of intelligence.
Speaking as a professional comedy magician for over thirty years, a sense of humor is certainly an indication of intelligence. You have to have intelligence to get the joke, my best audiences are college professors, my worst, prisoners. It takes intelligence to stay out of jail, to be able to communicate with others, to be able to set goals and complete them, to be able to imagine in ones minds eye.
The dictatorship of the distant bureaucrat seems to be a real pain in the ass. I suspect Europeans will prefer the dictatorship of more local bureaucrats.
And then? A return to the messy managed chaos of free markets, I hope, and the demise for generations, at least, of the ridiculously utopian socialist experiment. The real question is whether we can do this without the usual corrective of world war.
Much of the economic mess in Europe is due to the utopian myth that liberated human beings will instinctively do the right thing. They will not even have to be told to be prudent with their financial expenditures. The Germans were fully aware of the spendthrift behavior of the Greeks—but individuals who are now in touch with their authentic selves and no longer under the boot of oppression will inevitably change their behavior for the better. A new man or woman has arrived. The Zeitgeist has set them free.
“Much of the economic mess in Europe is due to the utopian myth that liberated human beings will instinctively do the right thing.”
Dostoevsky made exactly this point in “Notes from the Underground”. The whole socialist, utopian agenda is predicated on the assumption that, given a choice, people will do what is good for them. When they don’t, it is because they are misinformed. Dostoevsky demonstrated that what people really want is freedom, including the freedom to self-destruct.
I don’t know, the Russians have just came up with a new reserve currency to replace the dollar–apparently to be pegged to the average value of six major currencies: say the rubble, dinar, dong, dollar, yen and Euro. Apparently the Russians prefer the Euro over the German Reich Mark. The new world coin, coined by the Russian President, even has “unity in diversity” engraved on it. How touching, a Russian coin design to be issued by the UN to the rapture of the American university elite’s favorite platitude–”unity in diversity.” But the Russians do have a history with dystopias, so you have to give them credit for their eternal optimism. Those European misfit Americans only played cowboys and Indians, the European Russians played Cossacks and Jews.
It’s also typical socialist misleading rewriting of history. The motto as used in the USA is “e pluribus unum” not “in pluribus unum”.
FROM many one
not
IN many one.
There is no authority for, approval of or taste for multiculturalism in any Western nation, least of all the USA. Multiculturalism is another attack by the Frankfurt school on their culutural betters.
Love that “rubble”. Looks about right.
Isn’t this how we got the Euro?
Maybe the Russians are being ironic.They are just a bit late. 235 years late. That motto is already held by the nation excoriated by world wide “elites”. The nation of common men living in freedoms protected by Law published as the US Constitution, in case anyone is unaware of the Rights from obeisance to elites. Showing these par-venu moderns how to do it: have a multi-cultural society under the umbrella of a common ethos and law with the end result “the greatest good for the greatest number”. That nation so hated because of its exceptionalism, its particularity, AND its successes. Her national motto? E PLURIBUS UNUM. Essentially the same as unity from diversity. AND does not imply the “dictatorship of the proletariate” ruled by a Commissariate, because based on the idea/ideal of the Equality of Man, with no respect for Dictatorship from any group. Not a perfect nation, but not bad for dignity and respect for ordinary people what?
One you can get your dictatorship localized, the torches and pitchforks can come out.
One flaw in the failed utopian “vision” is a disregard for the lack of cultural unity in European culture. Anyone who has studied history or has visited European countries, knows that, in spite of a shared debt to Greek and Roman culture, and in spite of the Roman Catholic church, Italy ain’t France, and Germany ain’t Spain. Using a single currency and forming a central government ex nihilo will not create a European citizen.
People thought that forming a United States of Europe would be no more difficult than forming the United States of America. What they forget is that while the individual colonies had their differences, they were all still English colonies, which meant that most of their citizens were English in heritage and culture.
Germnay will go back to Deutsche Mark with in Two years.
2 things struck me reading this:
First, maybe it would have been just as well to let the Russkies have Western, as well as Eastern, Europe. We might not be going through this now.
The second is Roger’s quote about great schemes. I recall a lot of people shaking their heads when Valery Giscard d’Estaing wrote that God-awful Euro constitution that droned on for how many pages? Europe should have bailed right then.
ζουν ελεύθερες ή πεθαίνουν !!
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On my last trip to Greece (2009), a bottle of beer at a respectable bar cost 5 YouRows. (About $8 at the time).
The equivalent price is what I paid FOR MY HOTEL ROOM (dinner included) in Athens on my first trip to Greece 25 years ago (in Drachma, of course).
One of the “charms” of visiting the “Mediterranean” countries used to be that they were incredibly cheap by comparison to their nothern neighbors.
There were reasons for this of course, reasons that are often overlooked and which are ANATHEMA and unmentionable to the Utopians.
Mainly, it has to do with the fact that in the North things “worked” (like mailing a letter with assurance it would reach its destination); in the South, this type of efficient service was problematical.
The problem is that in the South these things continue to be problematical (I believe you still can’t or shouldn’t drink faucet water in Athens, let alone in the Hellenic countryside).
But you are now paying for “services” AS IF you were in Heidelberg , Zurich or Amsterdam.
The result? Toursits aren’t going to Spain, Greece, Portugal etc. anymore, at least not in the numbers that prevailed in the past. It’s simply not worth it.
Pretending that Greece is “like” Germany with the added charm of
featuring the Parthenon is like pretending that Islam is like Christianity. After all, they’re both religions, aren’t they?
Ta Leme!
Why has Wikipedia not noted the impending demise of the Euro?
A better question would be “Why does Wikipedia list 2002 as the ending date of the DEM when that was only the date that the DEM cash and coins were replaced?”
The euro legally replaced the DEM on January 1, 1999. After that, there was no independent DEM; the ECB made monetary policy decisions.
Of course, the German govt could change back if it desired.
Funny how power is flowing to the center in the U.S. despite the sorry example of Europe.
Politically, we tend to learn the wrong lessons from the examples of other nations: we emulate their foolishnesses and wickednesses, but disdain them when they manage a genuine improvement. It’s one of my perennial puzzlers.
I believe it depends on precisely who it is who is learning the lesson. In this case, it is the European man in the street who is learning the lesson, and they are putting pressure on the so called intellectuals to abandon their grand schemes.
In the US, most people pay little attention to what is happening outside our country. So it is the intellectuals who are learning the lessons. And unfortunately, the lesson the “intellectuals” always seem to learn is “they didn’t try hard enough to make it work”.
(The reason why most American’s don’t pay much interest to things happening outside of the US is quite logical and has nothing to do with parochalism. In Europe, most countries are smaller than most states here in the US.)
I moved from Houston to Brussels in spring 2001. Come January 2002, I had to toss all my hard-earned real world knowledge of European currencies and exchange rates in favor of this new wierd thing called the Euro, launched with great fanfare at the Arch monument in the old city… complete with a street fair, hot air balloons, bands, loudspeakers and all sorts of frothy drivel.
I remember reading in a French paper that the Euro had already been counterfeited and was already being spent in various third world countries, BEFORE its launch date.
Is it possible that, less than ten years later, the Belgian Franc could make a comeback? Can it be that my coin collection will once again have market value? I have Irish pounds, Deutsche marks, French francs, Lire, Drachmae, pretty much all of it. It’s all headed for a glass case for my collection– unless once again this cash is actually cash.
My disgust for Europe might then be the occasion of my spending it.. no matter how little it is presently worth.
Greece should print Bearer Bonds in Euro-denominations, and pay their civil servants (and pensioners and other creditors) 50% Euros, 50% 1-year Greek bonds at 0% interest.
The bonds would be fully redeemable in tax payments at 100% par value, and be convertible to Euros at 100% in a year.
Germany should do the same, and all PIIGS
Then, when Germany decides to stop bailing out the failed, unsustainable policies of the PIIGS, either the PIIGS can go or, more easily, Germany can go.
Off the Euro.
With a German people’s referendum to restore the DEM as the German currency.
At least we no longer have to consider the possibility of middle-eastern oil being priced in Euros rather than U.S. Dollars.
So europe should go back to a mass of independently fluctuating currencies? I don’t think so. It makes trade (within and without europe) difficult, makes travel difficult, makes everything difficult.
The problem with greece wasn’t just about the euro, it was about having a failed state within the union. It’s very early dayes for the EU, I think they’re doing pretty well. Compare the expansion of europe with the expansion of the united states from the original 13 colonies – I don’t think the comparison is as stretched as some might like to believe.
Atta boy! A dissenter! Thank you! We’ll need a longer perspective before we diss the Euro.
Regards,
Staffan, Stockholm
What ou say is like saying that it is safe to drive without brakes and that if you have an accident because a deer unexpectedly crossed the road it is your fault.
The problem with the euro is that just like stopping a car by a mix of using the gear box and decelerating it makes reaction to an unforeseen event so awkward and slow it makes disaster unavoidable.
Let’s see: when you had a big trade deficit, devaluation was a mesaure who could be enforced immediately, whose implementation cost was nil and whose political cost was moderate. Having to leave the Euro because your economy quiete simply doesn’t run at German speed is something who takes time to be implemeted (introducing anew currency), whose cost is far from nil and whose political cost is big enough to put fear into the hearts of politicians so the measure will be implemented when it is far too late.
The problem was that the Eurozone was a pipe dream from the beginning as it tried to enter into the same mold first world economies and some others who are closer to third world than to the former (eg former Communist countries). Add to this that unlike what happens in the United States there are strong barriers for migration between European States. First of them the lack of a common language and second of them the fact that a Slovenian engineer or doctor will not be recognized as such in France or Germany.
As I told before, a common language would be the death of the EU. Tiny Switzerland has 4 languages and it functions quite well. Europe only works under the condition that all cultures and languages are equally respected. Europe is not constructed as a country with one, two or three leading powers. This did not work in the old days, it will not work today.
Metthew:
You are wrong. The comparison to the early days of the US is more then a stretch. The original colonies, with a few exceptions, were all populated by Brits. There is no such unity in Europe. Each individual nation has its own history, culture and language. It is more like a country made up of a bunch of Quebecs.
Atop that, the original 13 colonies were all economically stable and self-supporting. By contrast, much of the enthusiasm of the French and German governments for the European Union was premised on the prospect — incredible as it seems today — of engineering a transfer of wealth from the other EU members to those two moribund giants.
Pride do goeth before destruction, don’t it?
The fall of the Euro horrendous? Not so;I’m looking forward to buying a nice vacation home in Europe for pennies on the dollar.
MR KIMBALL:The Euro will not fall;the Saudis will prop it up with excess petrodollars,and subsidized oil imports,but at a price:The End of Europe as a western-secular entity.The Brussel bureaucrats get to stay in power and serve as the the collaborationist face of a future EURABIA,complete with Sharia law and dhimnitude for those Europeans who protest.
The problem is that the liberals who run the euro, like liberals everywhere, are more interested in making sure their utopian dreams are fulfilled, then they are in the lives of the people destroyed by their utopian dreams.
No matter how bad things get, the liberals who run the euro won’t be hurt. They will see to that.
Hmm, the EU, the UN, the IMF, the Brentwood agreements, the Atlantic alliance, the WTO… all are processing of the same sheme: NWO, that Roosevelt and his gurus wanted to set on, deregulate the markets, and the social fares of our societies, so that we become serfs again.
Now, I’m looking for knights, not from the finance domains
If there is a point in that ramble, I believe it was this. That you believe that if markets get deregulated, we will become serfs.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. Deregulated markets set us free. It is socialism and it’s accompanying regulations that turn people into serfs.
“Deregulated markets set us free.” Yes, vogelfrei(without any protection from law). Be so free to sleep in the trees or under bridges. This is the last consequence of deregulated markets.
I don’t think there is any doubt that the plan was to use the currency “unification” to drive political unification. The problem socialists continually run into, though, is the fact that their ideas only “work”–if you can call it that–under conditions of fascist tyranny, and the Europeans continue to think there is some value in not turning their personal and collective sovereignty over to the “Salariat”.
That’s why Mussollini was such a fan of Keynes: he gave him a lot of good ideas. That’s why George Bernard Shaw was a fan of all the totalitarianisms he ran into, including Fascist Italy, National Socialist Germany, and of course the Bolshevik Revolution, for whom his friends the Webbs did such useful propaganda work.
It will be interesting to see what happens. I have said it often, but I really do think all loans that were created by fiat can be eliminated in the same way. That would mark a huge step forward to financial sanity, particularly if the various currencies are brought back.
One other thing, too: currencies only “move” relative to one another in conditions of inflation, which in turn only happen when banks are creating money. If we end fractional reserve banking and the various Central Banks, no currency “crisis” can ever come about again, absent the physical printing of money by governments.
The gamble with the euro (sic) was that a common currency would inevitably result in a shedding of “outmoded” forms of national identity in favor of the newly (if undemocratically) enfranchised European super state. So far, that hasn’t happened.
So far what has happened is that the Canadian (I am not American) motivated and elitist-apparatchik-created Euro-peon “super state” is about as inversely proportionally interested in being anything on its own merits as are its feckless functionaries in enriching themselves and their cronies from its rampant corruption.
The Euro, fatally infected at its birth by the dishonesty that marked that event, has died and, despite the recent injections of Scores of Billions of the confiscated (anti-biotic?) Dollars of America’s (of the world’s, that is) most creative, innovative, productive and industrious, the Euro’s funeral arrangements are already under way. (Expect the “Democratic’” potty’s gods, Soros and Rich et al, to dance around its pyre)
And the corruptly-conceived and as dishonestly “managed” Euro-Peon Neo-Soviet’s demise is imminent. Within two years neither the Euro nor the union will exist in their current form.
The Euro, like the E.U., is the application of alchemy to the political arena. Both were thought to be the Philosopher’s stone to change all the tribes of Europe into Europeans. Well, it was just as successful as changing lead into gold.
Perhaps, that is the lesson: there is no Philosopher’s stone to change lead into gold, or tribes into Europeans.
Europe only has two choices: to work together or to go down beautifully and learn to speak Chinese, the language of the next “world leader”. Personally, I prefer to be member No. xy in a club of free countries than to have the illusion to live in a very “independent” country that has to do what the big bullies want it to do.
In the autumn of 2001, when we emigrated to Israel, someone hatched a brilliant charitable scheme to help a family that had been devastated by the Sbarro terrorist attack in Jerusalem some months earlier. People with spare deutchmarks, francs, lire, scudos, pesetas, Irish pence, drachmai, etc., all coins that soon were to be useless due to the coming changeover to eurocents and euros, were encouraged to donate them to a central charitable agency that would help out this family by exchanging the money and sending to them. I had a bunch of such coins, so I threw them into a bag and went a few blocks not far from where I lived, and gave the bag to this fellow who represented the charity in Jerusalem .
It’s a great feeling to be able to give charity – especially when you are poor!
A couple of nights ago, riding the bus home to Jerusalem with my wife and son, I met this fellow in who lives in Shiló coming home from a wedding with his wife and son. We got to talking, and he said he was especially rich. He pulled out two small coins, a 50 eurocent coin, and a 20 eurocent coin.
I looked at them and wondered if the day would come soon when I could run a similar charitable scheme to help someone with people donating soon to be useless eurocents and euros to a central charity….
Ruvy,
I have a box full of old money, coins and papers from all over the world when my hubby and I were travelling a lot.
Uh, may-be I should have a look at them, some might rating very high in numismatics.
Also, some rare euro coins or coins with a defection already reach 37 to 47 euros/piece
Raafidis accuse Imaam Abu Bakr (вЂalayhi’l-salaam) being a Liar for saying "Prophets wealth doesn’t inherit,what ever they leave is charity" when Faatimah (вЂalayhi’l-salaam) expected to inherit Fadak.
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Now , we see Imaam ‘Ali (вЂalayhi’l-salaam) saying , "Knowledge is inheritance of Prophets while wealth is inheritance of Pharohs".
and we see hadeeth in Al-Kafi which says prophets do not leave dinars and dirhams as inheritance but they left Knowledge.Khomeini said about the hadeeth that its narrators are trustworthy and reliable.
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My Question is was Imaam ‘Ali (вЂalayhi’l-salaam) a liar too saying that
""Knowledge is inheritance of Prophets while wealth is inheritance of Pharohs " ?
P.S : Don’t quote Qur’aanic verse saying Sulaymaan (вЂalayhi’l-salaam) Inherit Dauwd (вЂalayhi’l-salaam) and all , because nowhere in Qur’aan talks about Inheritance of wealth but Knowledge.
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