Europe Should Seriously Consider A German Exit From The Eurozone

BRUSSELS – Children across Europe are being driven into poverty by harsh government austerity and youth unemployment is soaring, threatening to create “lost generations” that could fire up a new continental crisis. Global charity Caritas said on Thursday that around three out of every 10 children in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Spain are in or have been pushed to the brink of poverty. Greece said its youth unemployment had now exceeded 60%. Spain’s is above 50% and Portugal has just topped 40%.

Concerns are starting to re-emerge in the euro zone. Today's fourth-quarter GDP results out of the currency bloc were worse than expected, confirming fears that the pace of contraction in the euro-zone economy is accelerating.

As has been made abundantly clear on these pages since the breakout of the latest Cyprus crisis, the Russian policy vis-a-vis its now former Mediterranean offshore deposit haven-cum-soon to be naval base, has been a simple one: let the country implode on the heels of the Eurozone's latest humiliating policy faux pas, so that Putin can swoop in, pick up assets (including those of a gaseous nature, much to Turkey's chagrin) for free, while being welcome like the victorious Russian red army saving Cyprus from its slavedriving European overlords (a strategy whose culmination Merkel has

DAVOS — Youth unemployment is at staggering levels in the European Union. Every fourth young person between the ages of 15 and 24 is unemployed, amounting to around 5.5 million young adults without a job. In Spain, recent employment data indicate that the number has risen to 60 percent, a new record.   The figures serve as a stark reminder of the fundamental problems within some of Europe’s southern economies.  

I remain in "awe" of the amazing arrogance of politicians and news writers who simply cannot take "no" for answer no matter how many times it is spelled out. The horrendous "eurobond" idea simply will not go away, even though Merkel and the German supreme court buried it long ago. Even if Merkel was willing to give in on the idea, Finland and Austria wouldn't, and more importantly neither would the German supreme court.

European leaders are loosening the economic shackles once demanded by Germany as the recession and mounting unemployment in southern Europe shove aside the debt crisis as the euro area’s biggest headache. A two-day Brussels summit starting Thursday will endorse plans for “structural” assessments of national budgets, according to a draft statement, using code for granting countries such as France, Spain and Portugal extra time to bring down deficits.

European leaders are loosening the economic shackles once demanded by Germany as the recession and mounting unemployment in southern Europe shove aside the debt crisis as the euro area’s biggest headache. A two-day Brussels summit starting Thursday will endorse plans for “structural” assessments of national budgets, according to a draft statement, using code for granting countries such as France, Spain and Portugal extra time to bring down deficits.