Way too little has been done in 20 years to counter the Eurozone losing its foreign exchange adjustment tool.

Sir, Martin Wolf writes: “Andreas Kluth wrote in Handelsblatt Global this month: ‘A common currency was supposed to unite Europeans. Instead, it increasingly divides them.’ He is right” “The Italian challenge to the eurozone” June 20. 

Of course he is!In 1998, on the eve of the Euro, in an Op-ed titled “Burning the bridges in Europe” I wrote: 

“The Dollar is backed by a solidly unified political entity, i.e. the United States of America. The Euro, on the other hand, seems to be aimed at creating unity and cohesion. It is not the result of these.

The possibility that the European countries will subordinate their political desires to the whims of a common Central Bank that may be theirs but really isn’t, is not a certainty. Exchange rates, while not perfect, are escape valves. By eliminating this valve, European countries must make their economic adjustments in real terms. This makes these adjustments much more explosive. High unemployment will not be confronted with a devaluation of the currency which reduces the real value of salaries in an indirect manner, but rather with a direct and open reduction of salaries or with an increase of emigration to areas offering better possibilities.”

So clearly “All of this was predicted” Yes, but why has so little been done about it? Why have EU technocrats instead wasted their time on so many other minutiae?

What I did not foresee though, really because I had no idea of it, was that with the risk weighted capital requirements for banks, that which assigned a risk weight of 0% to sovereigns and 100% to citizens, fatal distortions in the allocation of bank credit were introduced, causing “high level of public debt” and making it all so much harder on the eurozone.

@PerKurowski