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Eurozone Doomsayer Got it Right - by Stephen Lendman
The Eurozone from inception was a disaster waiting to happen.
Eurozone economies are cratering. Every fix tried so far failed. Combining 17 dissimilar countries under one monetary/fiscal system assured disaster waiting to happen.
British economist Bernard Connolly knew it before the euro's 1998 introduction. His 1995 book titled, "The Rotten Heart of Europe: The Dirty War for Europe's Money" called it a harebrained idea doomed to fail.
Saying it cost him his job. Maybe he should be running failed economies to fix them one by one. Even laymen can do a better job than current and past officials who wrecked them and ordinary households to pay bankers. More on Connolly's book below.
On November 17, New York Times writer Landon Thomas headlined, "Words of a Euro Doomsayer Have New Resonance," saying:
Eurozone countries are "crumbling, just as he had long predicted, yet Bernard Connolly, Europe's most persistent prophet of doom, still" faces skeptics.
Addressing the Los Angeles-based Milken Institute last spring, he said:
"The current policy of lending plus austerity will lead to social unrest." Troubled Eurozone countries can't cut their way to recovery. "And one should not forget," he said, "that of the four countries (now six) we are talking about, all have had civil wars, fascist dictatorships and revolutions. This is history.""And this is the future if this malignant lunacy of monetary union is pursued and crushes these countries into the ground."
In 1995, Connolly took leave from his job as EU monetary affairs department head for his book. It remains a powerfully persuasive account of the Eurozone's predicted collapse.
He argued that monetary union would lead to political unification dominated by Germany and France, Europe's two largest economies. As a result, it had to be pursued quietly because people and parliaments of other Eurozone nations wouldn't support it.
After publication of his book, Connolly was suspended, then sacked. He's regarded as the foremost expert on European economic, monetary, and political integration.
Months before the euro's 1998 introduction, he predicted that one or more of Europe's weakest countries would face rising budget deficits, troubled economies, and a "downward spiral from which there is no escape unaided. When that happens, the country concerned will be faced with a risk of sovereign default."
Introduced in 1979, Europe's Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) as part of the European Monetary System (EMS), was intended to propel the continent to one European currency unit (ECU).
