Chris - perhaps you should forward your opinion that strong currency= strong economy to the Swiss NB who, after already reducing interest rates, has warned that it will increase the supply of SF to stem the increase in value of SF...
.. or to Japan where the govnt has warned that it cannot allow the Yen to increase in value.
And a weak (or,rather, a deliberately weakened)currency hasnt exactly hurt the Chinese economy in the last decade.
Switzerland and Japan are constantly talking about weakening their currencies, and sporadically intervene in the FX market. But every time they do so the trend quickly reverses within days or weeks. If they were serious they would massively intervene and keep their fx rate below a certain level. It's all political talk.
And the renminbi has been appreciating, even against the Dollar that it is pegged to, albeit at a very slow pace that wouldn't be matched by the open market. Nevertheless, China would be much better off if it could massively cut its import costs for all the natural resources it so desperately needs. Any pressure to increase export prices would be offset by lower import prices of goods needed to produce the goods. The real cost of keeping its currency weak is also only starting to play out through the very significant price inflation numbers.
... Once again please stop misquoting me. I never said that deposit flight is the problem. I said that it was a problem that,if it increases will not help Ireland recover.
OK, let me rephrase that, deposit flight is not a problem, it is a symptom of the underlying problem. I think we basically agree here, but I just think that the media and public opinion is focusing erroneously on deposit flight as a or the problem.
It is my view that, with limited domestic demand and being highly dependent on exports, Germany would not be able to sustain a currency much higher than currencies in the rest of Europe.
One of the great fallacies often thrown about is that the era of the DM was the glorious years of the German economy and everything has gone downhill since the Euro. It's rubbish.
Oldnick is right. If the Euro was to break up and the DM was re-introduced, Germany stands to lose as much as Ireland. It's export market that it is hugely dependent on would collapse completely considering 40% of it's exports go to Eurozone Countries who will all now have their own much weaker currencies. Their banks who hold a shed load of euro-denominated foreign debt would face huge losses as these bonds were re-denominated into local currencies. Not even going to go down the list of all the other problems...
There was a very interesting article in the German Wirtschafts Woche that completely contradicts the idea that Germany made bigger export gains after the introduction of the Euro. (
http://www.wiwo.de/politik-weltwirtschaft/die-lebensluegen-des-euro-475574/8/)
You can run it through google translate to get the full text, but here is the important part:
- after the introduction of the Euro, Euro zone exports grew by 5.2% per year
- at the same time exports to non Euro zone countries grew by 7% per year
- from 2000 to 2010 GNP grew by 1.1% annually
- from 1990 to 1999 GNP grew by 2.3% annually
Germany was doing better before the Euro, and after the introduction of the Euro it's exports grew more outside the Euro zone than inside.
This isn't just about a strong versus weak currency argument. That ship has sailed. The Countries in the Euro are all in this together. There is no painless get out clause for any Country whether that be Greece or Germany. The sooner the politicians realise that the better. We are not heading for the breakup of the Euro. We are heading to the issuance of Eurobonds and fiscal union. It's ironic that Germany went to war to try and rule Europe when all they had to do was create the Euro!
I agree that there is no painless outcome or solution and that politicians need to wake up to this, but as horusd has already pointed out one of the German state supreme courts has already made it clear that a Eurobond would not be constitutional and there are two hopes in a constitutional amendment.
Modern Germany also never wanted to rule Europe through economic and monetary strength, it simply behaved in a fiscally and monetary sound fashion and other countries were quickly exposed by the markets for doing the opposite.