Killing the Euro

It is time the euro is put to the sword says Jeff Randall in his Telegraph article today which you can read here. He reckons the euro is a financial fantasy of the order of the South Sea Company and he's right. Spain and now Cyprus have asked for a bail out which in the case of Spain could amount to €110bn to save its banks and €548bn over the next three years for its sovereign debts. Will the eurozone be able to find such amounts and what happens when Italy needs a bail out as well? Who will save the day? Will it be Germany which is now saying that further political and economic integration will require changes to its constitution which itself would require a referendum? Will the Germans vote for the necessary changes when a recent opinion poll shows 78% of Germans want Greece to exit the euro. Do turkeys vote for Christmas? It has been estimated that the cost to the Greeks to exit the euro would amount to 10% of GDP but according to Randall Costas Lapavitsas, a professor of economics, believes that it would be cheaper in the long run for Greece to default and return to the drachma. No one is denying it will be painful to leave the euro but if the end result will be worth it why don't they get on with it? Stupid question as we know the euro elite simply cannot accept that they got it wrong, that  a single currency for a disparate number of countries was never going to work unless there was a United States of Europe. If Germany cannot afford to rescue the euro or sensibly refuses to do more than it has already done there is another saviour waiting in the wings - Tony Blair of blessed memory who did not deny some kind of comeback to Andrew Marr yesterday. Blair still believes in the European project and that we will need to be a part of it if we want to exercise any form of power. He clearly hasn't been listening to those who believe the European project will fail as presently instituted as the nations within it are too disparate. There are those who believe the EU is bound to founder to be replaced in part by the resurrection of a kind of Hanseatic League and a League of what are called the periphery countries. Where does that leave us? Ready to join the Anglosphere where for all sorts of reasons we should always have been. There is much to be said for a shared language, culture, history, common law, attitude to trading and so on. If we are talking about power there could be no group so powerful in the world with the exception of China. To help us on the way the euro needs to be put to the sword and quickly.