
If coronavirus sinks the eurozone, the 'frugal four' will be to blame - rickdeveloper
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/mar/31/solidarity-members-eurozone-coronavirus-dutch-coronabond
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jsiepkes
I don't know if this is typical of UK journalism, culture or if it is just The
Guardian's way of doing things but the article is filed as a normal (economic)
news piece yet the whole thing is filled with opinions of the author. Even the
very headline of the article is an opinion.

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ajayh
The Guardian's Comment is Free section is opinion. It's a blog.

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jsiepkes
I'm kind of confused about what you are saying; When I click on the link I
land on a page where the "News" tab is highlighted and beneath it the sections
"Business > Economics" are printed in bold. Looks like a news article to me? I
don't see anywhere that this is actually a blog post?

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marcus_holmes
I think that this is down to the Guardian's politics - cultural relativism
means prioritising one piece of writing as "news" over another as "opinion" is
invalid.

I've got to say, having watched the journalism sausage factory in action while
running a newspaper, I'm not entirely opposed. Journalists routinely choose
what sources to cite and which to ignore. News is often, if not always,
manipulated to communicate a political point of view. Dropping the pretence
and presenting all news as opinion (or all opinion as news) seems at least
honest.

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tonyedgecombe
_At the video conference, the eurobond motion came up against the eurozone’s
“frugal four” – Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland – who argued
that the issuance of a common debt instrument would punish the countries that
had saved for such a rainy day, and encourage further fiscal mismanagement by
those who did not._

Politically this seems impossible to fix. Even though those countries gain by
the weakness of the Euro they will never agree to the transfers necessary to
fix it. It's unpalatable to their electorates.

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inshadows
Care to elaborate for economics novices why would the issuance of
coronabonds/eurobonds strengthen Euro?

Is it because foreign investors would seek Euro to invest in new lucrative
bonds? Any other factors?

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tonyedgecombe
_why would the issuance of coronabonds /eurobonds strengthen Euro_

Care to elaborate where I actually said that?

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skrtskrt
The Euro was a massive mistake.

Economists can barely agree on how monetary supply works in a single country's
economy, why not stitch a bunch of them together and see how it goes?

If you believe even a small part of Modern Monetary Theory has any value,
tying multiple sovereign nations to the same currency is simply not an option.

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ebg13
> _The Euro was a massive mistake. Economists can barely agree on how monetary
> supply works in a single country 's economy, why not stitch a bunch of them
> together and see how it goes?_

EU members are _exactly_ like states in the USA. They each have their own
independent economic interests, their own independent sets of laws governed by
central overriding principles and legislation, and they share a currency.

So you may as well be saying that the US Dollar was a massive mistake.

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skrtskrt
Steve Keen is a good source on this:

[https://braveneweurope.com/steve-keen-the-delusional-
leaders...](https://braveneweurope.com/steve-keen-the-delusional-leaders-of-
the-eurozone)

[https://braveneweurope.com/steve-keen-the-euro-is-a-
suicide-...](https://braveneweurope.com/steve-keen-the-euro-is-a-suicide-pact)

~~~
ebg13
Ok, how does Steve Keen feel about the USA reverting to pre-1792 colonial
currencies?

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skrtskrt
Us States are not equal to European countries in any of the ways that matter
here: they can’t have their own central banks or issue their own currencies,
can’t decide general banking policies, can’t control trade in any meaningful
way.

A better analogy of US states to Europe is provinces of a country - their
economic powers are extremely limited, and on the scale of macroeconomics,
nearly meaningless.

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runawaybottle
What is the larger point of this Eurozone now days? The Netherlands sound a
lot like Britain.

