Hollande is the new French President

[mjdgreg]

Great news. We now have a loony left wing socialist in charge of France. The nutter wants to spend his way out of the debt crisis. His plans will hasten the demise of the Euro and ultimately ensure the break-up of the EU. It can't happen quick enough for me.

Take my advice and sell all your shares and put your money into gold. It's the only safe haven when all hell is breaking loose. Things are about to get a lot tougher in UK plc. If you think the cuts so far have been tough then you ain't seen nothing yet (we have only scratched the surface of our debt problem so far).

It's time for us all to harden up and take our medicine like a man. Unfortunately it's now payback time for all that Labour profligacy and there is going to be blood on the streets.

[River Don]

The Greek election is more significant. If they renege on promises to implement more austerity and it looks like they will, then that could see the beginning of the end for the Euro.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

This guy will take things too far I feel and it could be real bad news.  I expect he won't implement half his policies they're so far fetched even Ed "I still haven't fully costed my policies" Balls wouldn't implement them.

[The Red Baron]

The Greek election is more significant. If they renege on promises to implement more austerity and it looks like they will, then that could see the beginning of the end for the Euro.

True- and Angela Merkel doesn't seem to have got the message that a German chancellor telling other European countries to stick to the austerity policies will only increase the opposition to them.

The Greeks don't need bale-outs and imposed austerity. They need to find an orderly way to leave the Euro, return to the Drachma and devalue their currency. That should have been done two years ago. All that is happened is that more debt has been piled on them.

[Filo]

The Greek election is more significant. If they renege on promises to implement more austerity and it looks like they will, then that could see the beginning of the end for the Euro.

True- and Angela Merkel doesn't seem to have got the message that a German chancellor telling other European countries to stick to the austerity policies will only increase the opposition to them.

The Greeks don't need bale-outs and imposed austerity. They need to find an orderly way to leave the Euro, return to the Drachma and devalue their currency. That should have been done two years ago. All that is happened is that more debt has been piled on them.

All imposed by the Germans and French an assisted by Mr Van Rumpuy!

[The Red Baron]

This guy will take things too far I feel and it could be real bad news.  I expect he won't implement half his policies they're so far fetched even Ed "I still haven't fully costed my policies" Balls wouldn't implement them.

If I was the British Prime Minister I'd be making sure I advertised the fact that personal and corporate taxation will be much lower in the UK than in France once Hollande has his way, and encouraging French businesses to relocate here.

Of course, it would upset the Eurocrats, but I wouldn't be losing any sleep over that!

[mjdgreg]

The Greeks don't need bail-outs and imposed austerity. They need to find an orderly way to leave the Euro, return to the Drachma and devalue their currency. That should have been done two years ago. All that is happened is that more debt has been piled on them.

Totally agree. They also need to stop taking the piss, e.g. stop claiming the pensions of relatives that are dead.

[BillyStubbsTears]

TRB

All well and good saying "The Greeks need to find an orderly way to leave the Euro". The problem is finding one. If you have bright ideas, you've missed the boat. You could have won a quarter of a million. The moreso, since the economic geniuses who have been short listed appear to have no genuinely practical solutions

http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/WolfsonPrize/wolfson%20economics%20prize%20finalists%20press%20release.pdf

Back in the real world, there are some strong-arm real-politik issues going on here. If Greece had left the Euro 2 years back, there would have been a calamity, for all of us. The Euro would have collapsed in a disorganised way, there would have been mass poverty along the Med, social collapse and a decade long Depression for the rest of us in Europe. who knows if peace would have held?

The Euro-sceptics rubbing their hands and laughing at the problems have no idea of what demons will be let loose if the Euro dies collapse. It will be utter carnage, for all of us.

Germany's prime policy has been to avoid that by trying to quarantine Greece. To some extent, they have suceded by making Greece take a really nasty medicine. That has won them time for starting to get the other PIIGS in order. Now, if Greece collapses, the Euro might just survive.

There is another approach that is possible. Germany has been a bloody disgrace in this whole saga. They have benefited massively by having the Euro kept depressed by weaker countries like Italy, Greece and Spain. If Germany wasn't in the Euro, their businesses would not have been anywhere near as successful in exporting as they have been. Their success has been built to some extent on the Med failure.

The logical solution is to communalise the debt of Greece etc. Germany has done well out if Greece's struggles, and they ought to be paying deeply to get them out. Letting the ECB become a de facto national bank for Europe would lance the boil more or less overnight. But it would expose Germany to their nightmare of higher inflation.  Conventional economics says that inflation is precisely the penalty that Germany should be paying for having had a devalued currency. But German voters and politicians are not prepared to face up to that. So the poor bas**rds in Greece take all the rap.

[mjdgreg]

They have benefited massively by having the Euro kept depressed by weaker countries like Italy, Greece and Spain. If Germany wasn't in the Euro, their businesses would not have been anywhere near as successful in exporting as they have been. Their success has been built to some extent on the Med failure.

Hallelujah!!! At last there is something I can agree with silly Billy on.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

It needs a worldwide effort though to stop depressing currency values really.  China's been doing it for years and so far that hasn't changed.  Although inflation in their country is already causing them a problem as the workforce is demanding higher wages which will cut their competitiveness and I expect see an increase in British manufacturing in the future.