Among nations we can trade value for value. Not "sell" value for money. Money that buyers do not have, so sellers "lend" them the buy money. Vendor financing writ large. It looks like exporters are earning lots of sales revenue and profit, until it comes time to collect back the money you loaned to the importers. Then Germany realizes all the earnings and profits were simply its own money, being cycled to give Mercedes cars to Greeks who could never pay for them with Greek incomes. Then vendor financing -- the financialized version of "money mercantilism" -- is exposed for the Ponzi that it is.
Greeks could not buy, and Germans could not sell, as many Mercedes, under a balanced trade policy. Vendor financing keeps the Ponzi going in the short term. But in the longer term it becomes clear that the buyers' debts are uncollectable. And the tears of outrage flow. Outrage at the implacable, unforgiving arithmetic of money.
The international gold standard used to regulate trade imbalances between nations. Gold was the "common currency". International payments were made in gold, which no nation could simply "print and spend". So a nation that imported too many goods would run out of gold, and would have to produce and sell export goods to earn some gold back.
Producer nations who had produced goods, exported the goods, and received the world's gold in payment; now "owned" all the world's international payments money, all the gold. You cannot earn more gold by producing and selling more stuff to nations who have no gold to pay for your exports. International trade grinds to a halt. Producer nations have "won" the mercantilist game of money monopoly.
To restart the game, you have to redistribute the gold among the players. You can become "the bank" and "lend" players your gold, and try to win your own gold back. Or you can "give" them some of your gold, and try to win your own gold back. But you cannot "earn" more gold by selling more stuff to nations who have no more gold to pay you.
The euro is the international payments currency -- the "gold" -- that eurozone nations use to pay each other. When one player earns all the euros, that player cannot earn "additional" euros from the other players who have no more euros to spend. German industry grinds to a halt because nobody has any money to buy their export goods anymore.
But capitalists -- intoxicated by the delirious wine of Money -- do not accept the constraints of money arithmetic. So an economics priesthood arises to tell the rich men what they want to hear; to serve the demand for a New Arithmetic that satisfies the insatiable lust for "more Money".
Exporters are made to believe they can earn unlimited Money by producing and selling stuff to importers. And as long as importers are allowed to simply create their own money to buy the stuff, the exporters' dream will be realized. Exporters work and slave to make stuff that other people enjoy the use of, simply by conjuring up $numbers to pay for the stuff. Exporters get rich in $numbers, importers get rich in stuff.
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