Posted on 08/19/2012 12:26:26 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
German eurosceptics quietly hope that Finland will become the first creditor state to storm out of monetary union in disgust, opening the way for others to break free.
Once Finns break the taboo, it would be easier for Germany to extricate itself from an escalating national disaster without inviting opprobrium from across Europe, or so goes the argument.
“We can’t start this off, but the Finns can,” said Hans-Olaf Henkel, former head of Germany’s industry federation.
Berlin’s policy elites are constrained by their honourable - if misdirected - feelings of moral duty towards the euro. They cannot bring themselves to plunge the dagger.
Finnish exit - or FIXIT, as they say in Helsinki - is certainly a plausible hypothesis. The Finns have no ensnaring duty to a mystical “Europe“. They did not join the EU until 1995, and only then with widespread dissent.
“Sweden and Denmark both held referendums on the euro, and both said no. We were never allowed to vote,” said Timo Soini, leader of the True Finns party. That was a mistake. The nation is not locked into ritual assent.
Finns obeyed the rules of EU membership with scrupulous care, while others gamed the system. “Our Lutheran morality, if you will,” said foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja.
They alone faced the fiscal implications of EMU for small economies out of cyclical alignment. “In Finland, a handshake is final. We thought we had a deal that every country would look after its own finances, only to find the deal was broken,” said Alexander Stubb, Finland’s Europe minister.
Yet looming over everything else is Vladimir Putin’s Russia, a “19th Century power” - to borrow Robert Kagan’s term - that has overturned the post-war borders of Europe once already by attacking Georgia and annexing South Ossetia
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I still do not understand how you can 'negotiate' a common currency amongst nations.
The biggest problem is not the currency itself (aside from it not having a treasury) but things like the Stability and Growth Pact, and the matter of the interest rate regime being bad for a great swath of the nations in the eurozone (especially the Club Med members).
I had a college professor constantly lecture of how great the European Union is and America needed to do something similar with Canada and (of course) Mexico to be able to compete. He wasn’t the worst in the world, but if there was any subject that I knew was any liberal pontification of any professor that was going to come around and bite back it was this one. No idea what he thinks now, probably would argue these are temporary setbacks and/or “it’s all Bush’s fault” with the economy going bad around the world and it all goes back to him.
Great. So because of a new Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement of sorts, Finland can’t leave the eurozone.
The thing about the European Union that the bankers did all agree on...was having just one currency. There was a huge mess that went on daily...with various issues and problems with conversion from D-marks to Francs, etc. Every single banker will tell you this EU thing was a good deal. From an investment point of view, or sales point of view....it doubles up the problems (I readily agree).
If you go to a German electronics shop today....they have the better German or French made washers...but they also have the cheaper washers made in Spain. So you can save a quarter of your money and buy Spanish-made washers. The question is....are they are superior quality? The answer is typically...no.
Unless I’m mistaken Finland needn’t leave the European Union if she drops the Euro and I haven’t read *anything* suggesting that there’s *any* chance of her leaving the EU.Assuming that I’m correct on both points it’s hard to imagine the USSR attacking *any* EU country.Attacking Georgia and attacking an EU member state are two *entirely* different things IMO.Such an act would bring an enormous firestorm from Europe,the US and elsewhere.It would create a unity among Western democratic nations the likes of which haven’t been seen since WWII.
Too much over there already echoes pre-WWII years.
Note to finland:
Get out of the eurozone, join NATO, and if you MUST be a member of an economic union, create a new one (separate from the EU) with norway, sweden, greenland, iceland, estonia, lithuania, and latvia. Maybe denmark if they talk real nice.
iirc, it dint turn out too well the last time they tried it...
The biggest problem is the socialist model. Nuf said.
yitbos
Finland managed to inflict in between 230,000 and 270,000 fatalities plus 200,000-300,000 injuries on Russia,
For anyone who hasn’t read about the devastation visited on Russia’s army in the 1939 Finnish Winter War, here is great synopsis of how tough and smart the Finns are:
http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/winter_war/
Nuff said indeed. But where socialists are strong, they won’t clam up, i.e. until their system collapses in on itself. And since the (liberal-ruled) USA has been dumb enough to support socialist systems since the end of the last war against socialism, it will itself collapse as a consequence.
During the Winter War, they had a kill ratio of 218-47 (plus 30 captured after being forced to land). During the Continuation War (1941-44) they had a ratio of 1,621-210. Then, following the end of hostilities with the Soviet Union, the Finns fought the Nazis in the Lapland War, where they scored the only 3 aerial victories of this conflict.
Flying the obsolete US F2 Brewster B239 "Buffalo", the Finns had a 459-15 kill ratio!
yup...
| Winter War | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of World War II | |||||||||
 A Finnish machine gun crew during the Winter War |
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|
|||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 FinlandSwedish Volunteers |
 Soviet Union Finnish Democratic Republic (A puppet state. Recognized only by USSR.) |
||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim |
 Joseph Stalin Kirill Meretskov Kliment Voroshilov Semyon Timoshenko[F 1] Otto Wille Kuusinen |
||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 337,000–346,500 men[F 2][5][6] 32 tanks[F 3][7] 114 aircraft[F 4][8] |
425,640–760,578 men[F 5] 998,100 men (overall) |
||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 25,904 dead or missing [F 7][14] 43,557 wounded[15] 1,000 captured[F 8][16] 957 civilians in air raids[14] 20–30 tanks 62 aircraft[17] 70,000 total casualties |
126,875 dead or missing[18][F 9] 188,671 wounded, injured or burned[18] 5,572 captured[20] 3,543 tanks[F 10][21][22][23] 261–515 aircraft[F 11][23][24] 323,000 total casualties |
||||||||
Finns were allied with Nazis. Also when they attacked USSR in 1941 they were stopped by Soviets just like they stopped Soviets a year before that.
Soviets withstood joint Finn-Nazi offensive and won the war...
If Finland leaves the Eurozone, other countries will follow. Germany is a stretch, but the Netherlands is growing tired of having to pick up the slack for Italy and Spain. I think the argument is that if Finland leaves the Eurozone, it will be followed shortly by the entire collapse of the European Union itself. The plan here is to insulate the richer countries from the ensuing chaos before it gets too deep for them to escape when the whole thing finally does come crashing down. It is questionable whether this can be done.
Also, don’t count on a big “allies” response to any aggression from Russia. The EU has been effectively neutered thanks to the crisis and remember, Oblamo is “flexible”. However, the Russians learned their lesson a long time ago when it comes to invading Finland. I’d be more inclined to see the re-acquiring of Belarus first, the Baltics to follow. Meanwhile, the Balkans will be rocked by violence. With the UN reeling from the breakup of the EU, Serbia will get the chance for some payback on Albania and Kosovo. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Hungary makes a move on Transylvania which they still maintain is their territory. People often forget the sharp hatchets that were buried when globalism took hold. When it falls, we’re back to the familiar “jigsaw puzzle on fire” of Europe that we know and love :)
Usually when we read of EU countries balking at the state of the monetary union is comes from three members - Germany, Austria and Finland.
All allies during WWII until the Finns cut loose when Germany was in full retreat on the Eastern front and the Soviets made a renewed push into Finland in 1944, forcing it to give up the territory gained in 1940.
These three are still alligned - two by language and culture and two by a common distrust of Moscow.
The Lisbon treaty does not allow for a member country to leave the EMU and stay in the broader EU (old EC). Finland is not strong enough to survive outside of the EC so it’s not going anywhere unless the Germans say when and how.
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