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Steve Martin demonstrates the Euro-crisis



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Why is it that the leaders of Europe find it so hard to get the fact that the Euro is not working, and their attempts to rescue it are only making matters worse?

This Steve Martin clip from The Man with Two Brains is the best illustration of their approach I can imagine:



The Germans of all people should remember what happens when a country is forced into penury to repay a foreign debt. (A lot of us remember when Greece and Spain were both ruled by military dictators.)

European leaders have a choice: Either they let the Euro zone print money on a vast scale or they admit the Euro project is a failure and work out an exit strategy.

Fear of a return to more authoritarian ways is of course one of the reasons that Greek politicians have been so desperate to stay in the Euro club, and thus they ignore the obvious fact that you can't 'bailout' a bankrupt state by lending it more money. Even more so when the conditions attached to the 'bailout' have crippled the Greek economy. Every future general election in Greece is going to be a referendum on the question of whether Greece should stay in the Euro. At some point the voters are going to say 'no'.

The rest of Europe is likewise ignoring the fact that even if the Euro survives the current crises in Greece, Spain, France and Italy, it is a matter of "when," not "if," the whole house of cards comes crashing down.


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