Is it time to bin the Euro.?

I watched BBC World a few days back, they claimed the Italians were close to retuning to the Lira.(is that spelt right?)

This got me to thinking about the Credit Crisis, and would it be better for all if we binned the Euro and went back to the good old fashioned home nation currencies, dealing with our own banks and investors first.


To be honest I don't really know anyone who agrees with the Euro anyway, unless its just my circle of friends.


and on a side note,

No offence ment to the Jocks on the forum, but you have to be asking if the Bank of Scotland can't manage its own affairs with 300 years to get it right, Was this failure really due to the Credit Crisis? or just bad management? What chance would Scotland have if it went independent. Personally I do not want to see the Scotland get it's so called independence. However I do wish England would adopt some of the jock policies, such as binning the council tax, free care for the elderly etc.

Whilst not professing to know a lot about International high finance. I can't really see how anyone who doesn't have the Euro as their everyday currency has any right to say what should or should not be done with it.

We have had the Euro here in Ireland now for a good number of years and it has replaced the Irish Punt without any great problems that I can see.

My only concern is with the week Pound Sterling as my Army pension is paid in it and I am loosing money each month.

Maybe the better Idea would be for the UK and the rest that opted out of the Euro to opt in while the Euro is so strong. With regard to the Italian Lira it had about the same value as a roll of Andrex.

Faugh-a-ballagh

Just as ace once told me.

The Pound and the Dollar are always the best currency to hold and deal in.

But no matter what currency you have. The best way to safe guard your cash is by buying into property always was and always will be.

No one is allowed to buy and stock gold, Jewellery is a waste of money, for every pound spent buying jewellery as soon has you leave the shop it is worth less than 10% of the purchase price.

Bricks an mortar go up and down with the economy but if you can keep old of it, its value will soon increase back and above its purchase price.

I have no real knowledgs of international finance but here is my tuppence worth.
I am in favour of retaining individual currencies as each country can have more control on it's own financial affairs. As for the Scottish question, if Scotland were independent (Heaven forfend!) that government could have done what the UK government did for Northern Rock. Remember that the "Old Lady of Threadneedle Street" (Bank of England) was founded by a Scot.

One does noy have to live under a monetary system to criticise it. What was that sais about the Lira? The Irish upturn was due to receiving much more than it contributes to the EU, not the Euro. Here in the UK the pound has served us well whilst we contribute more than we receive.

"My only concern is with the week Pound Sterling as my Army pension is paid in it and I am loosing money each month" If Eire had remained in the Union you would not have that problem!

Hi Acorn. We all have the right to criticise anything we want to what I can't understand is why a person living in the UK would want to.

From a farmers point of view I know that I and many other Irish farmers benifited from the EU and continue to do so. The main reason that British farmers didn't get as much is because the UK government doesn't apply for all of the premia that are open to farmers. It has do be done on a government basis.

With regard to remaining in the "Union" I think we would much prefer the union of a United Ireland.

Faugh-a-ballagh

"We all have the right to criticise anything we want to what I can't understand is why a person living in the UK would want to."


We don't live in the USA, Afghan,Iran etc but we all put our view into the hat.

I am against the Euro mostly for what some would say are stupid reasons. I feel that its becoming harder and harder to have an identity we can be proud of in the UK. Many other places have a national identity or something people can relate to.

You mention France to someone, few things spring to mind, Eiffel Tower, wine, good food, weather,
mention Spain and it's weather, national dress, siestas, scenery.(Bull fights maybe)

You mention the UK, its er... Shit weather, football hooligans and maybe the odd fried mars bar. lol... Oh and maurice dancing. I'm so proud.

Keeping currencies helps keep a part of our nations identity. Any thing that helps this is good in my book.

What they were saying about the lira was, that it was becoming harder and harder for their economy for them to stay with the Euro and many business leaders and politicians alike, with the support of most of its citizens were wanting out of the Euro.

I was in Lanzarote last week on a family holiday taking along my 14(15 in November) year old niece, (Phew, where were girls like that when I was growing up, It's official, I'm now Uncle Perv.) anyway, I was talking to a chap from Ireland, his opinion was that the euro was wrong for Ireland, for much of the reasons Uncle Acorn mentioned. Too much was relied upon from the EU. He also said, he never realised how expensive the punt was until the Euro took over. He said he lost out on a fair bit of cash during the switch over, but never expanded on that. Don't worry my holiday was good, I didn't spend all my time talking shite with pissed paddy's

L.

I think the Paddy was possibly talking mega shite. the problem was at the time that we switched over to the Euro people didn't take into account the lesser value of the single Euro against the Irish Punt. It was 1 Punt = €1.28. A lot of people couldn't work out why something that was costing 1 Punt before cost €1.28 after.

There really was no excuse as we were all given a conversion calculator by the government.

I certainly didn't lose any money nor make any.

My own opinion is that we (Ireland) should not have joined the EU but we did and now we are a member we should embrace it and strive to make it work.

Britain never really had an identity in my opinion, when you look back in history it is a nation that has evolved from a mixture of many races. Saxons, Vikings, and the French to name some of them.

Faugh-a-ballagh

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/3161588/Financial-Crisis-Who-is-going-to-bail-out-the-euro.html

For all the problems, I am glad we retained our own monetary system.

After watching 'Black Wednesday' in Sept 1992, when Major and Lamont watched our interest rates go up to 15.5 %, as a result of being in the European Exchange-rate Mechanism, and currency speculators being given free-rein to go large and drop the Pound below its ERM floor value, the best thing we ever did was maintain dominion over our our currency and not allow a bunch of federal-minded gits at the Central Banks in both Brussels and Frankfurt, to govern any response we might want to make to worsening financial conditions.

Having been travelling through Europe widely for the last 10 years or so on business, I've heard regular claims that the Germans are trading again in the D-Mark, up near the Danish border; that the Italians are doing the same with the bog-roll Lira; and that the Dutch are doing the same with the Pfennig. It hasn't been a happy currency for those who use it. Sorry, but just because you no longer have to change money to go to another country where it's used is not a sufficient reason to manufacture a monetary system based on it. It might work for the former Sov-Bloc nations now arriving in the EU, who had either Russian Rouble or their own worthless tat to spend and now actively aspire to acquiring the Euro €, but for those who already had a currency of long-standing stability, where was the attraction?

The key thing for me, as with all things European, is that I would not, and could not vote for any system which took all power for us, as a nation, to determine ourselves what to do in the event of a financial [or other] crisis; and where that decision making process, having been robbed from us, was then handed over to a bunch of unelected federalists in a country which didn't have the UK as its top and sole priority.

The longer we retain the Pound, I'm happy. It takes more than having to stand in a queue to change currency at the airport to upset me.

As for The Irish Punt: it's probably the only thing on which I've ever agreed with Sinn Fein.

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"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat its mistakes..."