"...Since its inception,
the Eurozone has been a gigantic German subsidy machine.
...the German trade surplus surged.
The trade deficit of everyone else widened.
German exports became more cost-competitive,
due to the fact that the Euro
has been cheaper than the Deutsche Mark would have been
(and also Stronger than the Lira et. al. would have been).
...the common currency allowed private citizens in the periphery
to borrow at cheap rates like never before,
snapping up German good[s].
...while Germany stands as a model of fiscal health,
...it's been the debt of peripheral nations
that has enabled Germany to stay under-leveraged.
the Eurozone has been a tremendous gift
to German exporters and the German state.
The idea that Germans are hard-working nobles,
and the periphery is comprised of lazy borrowers
fits nicely with cultural biases,
but it doesn't really reflect the dynamic
of what's happened over the last decade.
Germany continues to benefit massively from the Eurozone,
as without it, it would be faced with swift loss of customers
(all the countries around it),
competitiveness problem
(the Deutsche mark would likely surge in value)
and removal of safe-haven...flows."
Joe
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