TWO questions were raised in last week’s Cumberland News.
Firstly, Philip Gilligan asked why there was such secrecy about the military convoy passing through the region and presumably carrying nuclear material.
Could it be that the authorities wanted to minimise the possibility of terrorist action?
More significantly Stephen Blease, in Opinion, asked whether there is an economic reason why the euro is a bad idea.
One answer is that the interest rate set by the ECB suits no individual country.
It is too low for Germany and the other northern states but too high for the southern ones and causes them to overspend.
The result is a subsidy of the former by the latter and how long Germany, for example, now with problems of its own, will tolerate this situation is the real question.
It is precisely this mismatch of interest rates that has historically scuppered every attempt at monetary union attempted without full political union.
For much more detail on the mechanisms involved see The End of Europe’s Empire by N O’Connor and N Hubble and The Tragedy of the Euro by Philipp Bagus.
Philip Brown,
West Hall
Share