9 ms·

An often overlooked point is that euro is not just an economic tool but also a social one, as being able to travel and pay freely in the whole continent is an i

An often overlooked point is that euro is not just an economic tool but also a social one, as being able to travel and pay freely in the whole continent is an important unifying point.

kzrdude 8y ago
Not intended to be entirely contrafactual, but can't we think of lots of alternative solutions to the same problem? Being able to travel across europe and pay freely everywhere. For example, unifying card or other cashless payments to a bigger extent, so that coins and bills become less important.
- throwaway8121 8y ago
  Those are 21st century solutions for a 1990s problem. And now the Euro exists it would be very difficult to revert to separate currencies (even though that may be preferable)
petre 8y ago
I can pay freely with my own currency in the EU as long as I use a credit or debit card, thank you. I won't trade sovereignity for convenience, regardless of social engineering coming from Bruxelles or Merkel. I don't want my country to become the next Greece.
- kasey_junk 8y ago
  “Freely”? I’d be surprised.
- walkingolof 8y ago
  Greece problems ran deeper than just entering the Euro, massive corruption and tax avoidance played a major role creating that crisis. Its estimated that ~25% of the Greece GDP where not subject taxed, effectively a shadow economy.
  - PaulHoule 8y ago
    This is a factor in Italy too.
  - petre 8y ago
    How about Italy and Portugal then? The truth is that the Euro was a political decision with disregard of ecomics. That's why Margaret Tacher refused to adopt the Euro for the UK and warned that it would end democracy in Europe. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5TPpuIslzG4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5TPpuIslzG4
  - taysic 8y ago
    It's worth noting that when a country has control of its own currency, its issues are more self-contained. It doesn't get easy money based on the performance of other countries within the EU. It also can devalue its own currency if it can't pay back its own bonds.
- kuschku 8y ago
  You consider a 2-3% (or up to 7% with AMEX) fee on everything you buy (even though it’s paid by the merchant, and so you only pay it indirectly) "free"? And would you be equally calm if you’d have to pay 2-3% more sales tax?
  - petre 8y ago
    Rather than trading away my country's sovereignity? Yes! It's actually quite a great deal compared to getting screwed over by the ECB/creditors and having to pay increased taxes on everything.
- jimnotgym 8y ago
  Freely? My bank charge extortionate fees for translating currencies on a card.
- dpwm 8y ago
  Just out of curiosity, what is your country? There are many countries at the moment that this could apply to, but most are already in the Euro which so far is a one-way trip. > I won't trade sovereignity for convenience, regardless of social engineering coming from Bruxelles or Merkel. This sounds a lot like Brexit leave campaign rhetoric and I suspect is the reason you're being downvoted. Regardless of how you feel about the EU and Brexit, sovereignty has to be one of the weaker aspects. Disliking the EU is fine, but let's be honest about why. Consider the origin of most nation states. Smaller autonomous regions were invaded or bribed into some form of union. In many of these unions rules were harmonized to varying extents and sovereignty was ceded. Common currencies were also adopted in some of the unions. Consider the nation state that you hold the sovereignty of so high. Imagine tomorrow it was split into two. Both of these regions have the same currency and many common rules and regulations. Given that it's highly probable that your country has fully embraced capitalism and derives much of its wealth through trade, it has a choice: change things or not. If you don't change anything you haven't really regained sovereignty. If you change things you're imposing barriers to trade. Given you had a common currency and rules before, there's a good chance that they were your preferred trading partner if the infrastructure was good enough. Interestingly, there are regions where intra-state infrastructure is better than inter-state infrastructure, usually due to geography. But we can go deeper than that. We can keep subdividing from regions into cities into towns into households into individual people. Every time you go to the ballot box you acknowledge that you have ceded individual sovereignty. All the evidence I've seen points to the sovereignty argument in Brexit wasn't about sovereignty being ceded, but who it was perceived as being ceded to. Because if the vision of the Brexit-supporting International Trade and Development Secretary is to be taken as the post-brexit plan, then Brexit will be all about ceding more sovereignty for less trade.
  - repolfx 8y ago
    All the evidence I've seen points to the sovereignty argument in Brexit wasn't about sovereignty being ceded, but who it was perceived as being ceded to They're impossible to disentangle. Voters in the UK had for years been telling politicians, here's our priorities, here's what is upsetting us. Mostly, massive immigration that overloaded public services. In response they were told, sorry, we can't do anything about that, France and Germany won't let us. It's out of the question, even trying to talk about it is pointless. Oh yeah, and you're probably a racist for even asking. Voters don't like being told to shut up because some foreign politician disagrees. Is that dislike a desire for "more sovereignty" or is it a problem with who power has been delegated to? Arguably if the UK had entered an EU-like arrangement with the USA instead, and become the 51st state, voters would have faced very similar concerns over things like gun control instead of immigration. Ultimately technological progress does allow us to satisfactorily decentralise power in new ways. Some people want society to go in the opposite direction and centralise it as much as possible. This is a bad idea, and the Eurozone predicament is an interesting example of why.
Systemic33 8y ago
Definitely. And it also makes a difference for a company, as you can set a € price, and it can work for more or less the entire EU. E.g. in Denmark (although not part of €, but pegged to 100€ ~ 745kr.) you can with full support, do all your bookkeeping/accounting denominated in Euro if you so please, as the danish state allows for bookkeeping denominated in DKK and EUR.
- Silhouette 8y ago
  And it also makes a difference for a company, as you can set a € price, and it can work for more or less the entire EU. Unfortunately, that isn't really what happens in practice. Although many states share the same currency, they do not share the same wealth or cost of living. You can't just pick one price for your product or service in Euro and then expect that everyone from France and Germany to Greece and the Eastern European states will be able to afford it. The EU might like to present itself as a single market, and it tries very hard to force people to set one price that applies throughout. However, the illusion is shattered when it comes into contact with the more diverse reality, and there's always a risk when you artificially distort markets for political reasons that you'll do more harm than good.
  - kazen44 8y ago
    This is basically the same in the US or any other major country/economic block with a single currency. Setting a price in the US will mean you also exclude people from poorer regions where cost of living and wages are lower. This is not exclusive in the eurozone. Also, your last argument makes little sense in my opinion. The EU's predecessors itself massively distorted both steel and coal markets to "force" peace and cooperation through the contintent and deal with the age old problem of nationalism and revenge over old wars... Could that be considered a bad thing because it distorted the markets? I highly doubt many would agree?
    - throwaway8121 8y ago
      Not on the same scale, there is no US state as wealthy as Luxembourg nor as poor as Bulgaria.
cturner 8y ago
I don't think this is a strong argument. Physical cash is on the way out. You can do payments through mastercard/visa lines, and wired transfers are straightforward. FX conversions are straightforward when everyone has a phone. In 2007 I had a situation where I was being paid in Australia, but living in London. I used the lines on my cards for that year, and don't remember it being inconvenient.
- rwmj 8y ago
  My bank makes me use a terrible rate and then adds a £1.50 charge on top, every time I use my card in the rest of Europe. So I'm still looking for good deals on Euros and carrying large amounts of cash when I go.
  - hocuspocus 8y ago
    Check out Revolut, Monzo, Starling or Transferwise.
  - rtpg 8y ago
    the EU could simply force banks to let you withdraw at market rates at any ATM
    - majewsky 8y ago
      There was a huge pushback from banks a few years ago when transaction fees at German ATMs were capped to (AFAIK) € 1,90. The argument from banks is that there are a lot of online-only banks that rely on the ATMs of banks with physical branches in a parasitic manner.
      - kazen44 8y ago
        in the netherlands they are trying to solve this issue by making ATM's standardized and not bank-dependant. Which seems like a far saner way to do it imo.
      - hocuspocus 8y ago

An often overlooked point is that euro is not just an economic tool but also a social one, as being able to travel and pay freely in the whole continent is an important unifying point.

kzrdude 8y ago

Not intended to be entirely contrafactual, but can't we think of lots of alternative solutions to the same problem? Being able to travel across europe and pay freely everywhere. For example, unifying card or other cashless payments to a bigger extent, so that coins and bills become less important.

throwaway8121 8y ago
Those are 21st century solutions for a 1990s problem. And now the Euro exists it would be very difficult to revert to separate currencies (even though that may be preferable)

petre 8y ago

I can pay freely with my own currency in the EU as long as I use a credit or debit card, thank you. I won't trade sovereignity for convenience, regardless of social engineering coming from Bruxelles or Merkel. I don't want my country to become the next Greece.

kasey_junk 8y ago
“Freely”? I’d be surprised.
walkingolof 8y ago
Greece problems ran deeper than just entering the Euro, massive corruption and tax avoidance played a major role creating that crisis. Its estimated that ~25% of the Greece GDP where not subject taxed, effectively a shadow economy.
- PaulHoule 8y ago
  This is a factor in Italy too.
- petre 8y ago
  How about Italy and Portugal then? The truth is that the Euro was a political decision with disregard of ecomics. That's why Margaret Tacher refused to adopt the Euro for the UK and warned that it would end democracy in Europe. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5TPpuIslzG4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5TPpuIslzG4
- taysic 8y ago
  It's worth noting that when a country has control of its own currency, its issues are more self-contained. It doesn't get easy money based on the performance of other countries within the EU. It also can devalue its own currency if it can't pay back its own bonds.
kuschku 8y ago
You consider a 2-3% (or up to 7% with AMEX) fee on everything you buy (even though it’s paid by the merchant, and so you only pay it indirectly) "free"? And would you be equally calm if you’d have to pay 2-3% more sales tax?
- petre 8y ago
  Rather than trading away my country's sovereignity? Yes! It's actually quite a great deal compared to getting screwed over by the ECB/creditors and having to pay increased taxes on everything.
jimnotgym 8y ago
Freely? My bank charge extortionate fees for translating currencies on a card.
dpwm 8y ago
Just out of curiosity, what is your country? There are many countries at the moment that this could apply to, but most are already in the Euro which so far is a one-way trip. > I won't trade sovereignity for convenience, regardless of social engineering coming from Bruxelles or Merkel. This sounds a lot like Brexit leave campaign rhetoric and I suspect is the reason you're being downvoted. Regardless of how you feel about the EU and Brexit, sovereignty has to be one of the weaker aspects. Disliking the EU is fine, but let's be honest about why. Consider the origin of most nation states. Smaller autonomous regions were invaded or bribed into some form of union. In many of these unions rules were harmonized to varying extents and sovereignty was ceded. Common currencies were also adopted in some of the unions. Consider the nation state that you hold the sovereignty of so high. Imagine tomorrow it was split into two. Both of these regions have the same currency and many common rules and regulations. Given that it's highly probable that your country has fully embraced capitalism and derives much of its wealth through trade, it has a choice: change things or not. If you don't change anything you haven't really regained sovereignty. If you change things you're imposing barriers to trade. Given you had a common currency and rules before, there's a good chance that they were your preferred trading partner if the infrastructure was good enough. Interestingly, there are regions where intra-state infrastructure is better than inter-state infrastructure, usually due to geography. But we can go deeper than that. We can keep subdividing from regions into cities into towns into households into individual people. Every time you go to the ballot box you acknowledge that you have ceded individual sovereignty. All the evidence I've seen points to the sovereignty argument in Brexit wasn't about sovereignty being ceded, but who it was perceived as being ceded to. Because if the vision of the Brexit-supporting International Trade and Development Secretary is to be taken as the post-brexit plan, then Brexit will be all about ceding more sovereignty for less trade.
- repolfx 8y ago
  All the evidence I've seen points to the sovereignty argument in Brexit wasn't about sovereignty being ceded, but who it was perceived as being ceded to They're impossible to disentangle. Voters in the UK had for years been telling politicians, here's our priorities, here's what is upsetting us. Mostly, massive immigration that overloaded public services. In response they were told, sorry, we can't do anything about that, France and Germany won't let us. It's out of the question, even trying to talk about it is pointless. Oh yeah, and you're probably a racist for even asking. Voters don't like being told to shut up because some foreign politician disagrees. Is that dislike a desire for "more sovereignty" or is it a problem with who power has been delegated to? Arguably if the UK had entered an EU-like arrangement with the USA instead, and become the 51st state, voters would have faced very similar concerns over things like gun control instead of immigration. Ultimately technological progress does allow us to satisfactorily decentralise power in new ways. Some people want society to go in the opposite direction and centralise it as much as possible. This is a bad idea, and the Eurozone predicament is an interesting example of why.

Systemic33 8y ago

Definitely. And it also makes a difference for a company, as you can set a € price, and it can work for more or less the entire EU. E.g. in Denmark (although not part of €, but pegged to 100€ ~ 745kr.) you can with full support, do all your bookkeeping/accounting denominated in Euro if you so please, as the danish state allows for bookkeeping denominated in DKK and EUR.

Silhouette 8y ago
And it also makes a difference for a company, as you can set a € price, and it can work for more or less the entire EU. Unfortunately, that isn't really what happens in practice. Although many states share the same currency, they do not share the same wealth or cost of living. You can't just pick one price for your product or service in Euro and then expect that everyone from France and Germany to Greece and the Eastern European states will be able to afford it. The EU might like to present itself as a single market, and it tries very hard to force people to set one price that applies throughout. However, the illusion is shattered when it comes into contact with the more diverse reality, and there's always a risk when you artificially distort markets for political reasons that you'll do more harm than good.
- kazen44 8y ago
  This is basically the same in the US or any other major country/economic block with a single currency. Setting a price in the US will mean you also exclude people from poorer regions where cost of living and wages are lower. This is not exclusive in the eurozone. Also, your last argument makes little sense in my opinion. The EU's predecessors itself massively distorted both steel and coal markets to "force" peace and cooperation through the contintent and deal with the age old problem of nationalism and revenge over old wars... Could that be considered a bad thing because it distorted the markets? I highly doubt many would agree?
  - throwaway8121 8y ago
    Not on the same scale, there is no US state as wealthy as Luxembourg nor as poor as Bulgaria.

cturner 8y ago

I don't think this is a strong argument. Physical cash is on the way out. You can do payments through mastercard/visa lines, and wired transfers are straightforward. FX conversions are straightforward when everyone has a phone. In 2007 I had a situation where I was being paid in Australia, but living in London. I used the lines on my cards for that year, and don't remember it being inconvenient.

rwmj 8y ago
My bank makes me use a terrible rate and then adds a £1.50 charge on top, every time I use my card in the rest of Europe. So I'm still looking for good deals on Euros and carrying large amounts of cash when I go.
- hocuspocus 8y ago
  Check out Revolut, Monzo, Starling or Transferwise.
- rtpg 8y ago
  the EU could simply force banks to let you withdraw at market rates at any ATM
  - majewsky 8y ago
    There was a huge pushback from banks a few years ago when transaction fees at German ATMs were capped to (AFAIK) € 1,90. The argument from banks is that there are a lot of online-only banks that rely on the ATMs of banks with physical branches in a parasitic manner.
    - kazen44 8y ago
      in the netherlands they are trying to solve this issue by making ATM's standardized and not bank-dependant. Which seems like a far saner way to do it imo.
    - hocuspocus 8y ago