A lurker sent this to us; it appears that the Germans have plans in motion to return to their own currency, in the light of the inevitable Euro crisis:

Thinking the Unthinkable

BERLIN (Own report) – Following the passage of the 750 billion Euro bailout package, the debate on Germany’s leaving the monetary union has become more intense. Business representatives confirm that German industry, which exports heavily to other countries within the Euro zone, has up to now greatly benefited from the common currency. If an austerity program can be successfully imposed on Southern Europe, establishing a pan-European economic “model” patterned on Germany, the Euro will remain advantageous for Germany. But strong resistance is expected from Greece and other countries. If expensive transfer payments cannot be avoided, it may become necessary “to think the unthinkable” of Germany “leaving the monetary union” writes the business press. In the long run, Germany’s withdrawal from the Euro zone is, in fact, highly probable, the Swedish economics scholar Stefan de Vylder tells german-foreign-policy.com. The first insinuations about the probable consequences indicate that serious tensions can be expected in Europe.

The passage of a 750 billion Euro bailout package is being very angrily commented in Germany. According to the German media, the bailout package was part of France’s plan and should not be limited to German resources being transferred to Southern Europe, but should also be a first step in the direction of creating a European economic governing body. Influential circles are demanding that a stand be taken against these efforts and that resistance be put up against French pressure. Beyond this, a debate of principles has begun around the question of the Euro’s utility for Germany.

[…]

Resistance
But Berlin is not sure if the expected resistance against these budgetary dictates and sanctions can be defeated. Attentively German media are reporting that in Athens, a draft law taking national budgetary decisions away from the country’s parliament is creating “unrest”. This law would relinquish a basic democratic right of sovereignty. Also unclear is whether the protest movement that has developed against Greece’s austerity program can be repressed. “Part of the Greek problem lies in the fact that the Greeks are very skeptical toward their rulers,” writes the business press.[5]

[…]

Centrifugal Force
The consequences of Germany’s leaving the monetary union have, so far, only been insinuatively discussed. “Europe’s unraveling would create an immense centrifugal force that would be impossible to bridle” according to one commentary, “up here, a rich, industrialized north, down there, a poor south, and a deeply impoverished southeast”

[…]

http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56342

My emphasis.

And from the Financial Times:

On Thursday we poured scorn on the bizarre rumour that German officials have already prepared for a “plan B” contingency involving the return of the Deutsche Mark as soon as this weekend.

Although it might not have been as far fetched as we thought…

May 14 (Bloomberg) — French President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to pull out of the euro unless German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to back the European Union’s bailout plan at a meeting last weekend in Brussels, El Pais newspaper said, citing comments Spain’s premier Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero made at a meeting of socialist politicians. The report didn’t say how it obtained the information.

[…]

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/05/14/231861/now-about-those-dem-rumours-redux/

This is all VERY interesting.

A German ‘Plan B’ (or should that be ‘Plan ß’?) to return to the Deutschmark.

What would this mean practically?

First of all, if the Germans have a Plan ß ready to launch, it means that they must have a huge cache of Deutschmarks already printed, enough for every German, in preparation for the return to their own currency.

If this is true, it means that they saw all of this coming, and started preparing for it ages ago.

If they have this currency stored in a bunker somewhere, there will have to be some rules as to who has the right to exchange their worthless Euros for Neu Deutschmarks.

In order to keep the number of new Deutschmarks in circulation low, they would need to legislate that only Germans can exchange their Euros for Deutschmarks, at a fixed rate, and that this should be possible for a short window of time. As soon as the announcement is made, the Euro will suffer a massive crash.

The reason for limiting the Neu Deutschmark to Germans is simple; if everyone in the world who held Euros was able to exchange them for Neu Deutschmarks (which we can be sure will not be inflated) at a fixed rate, there would be:

• Too many Neu Deutschmarks in circulation, reducing their value as the fixed rate makes it increasingly advantageous to obtain Neu Deutschmarks for Euros of rapidly diminishing value
• A huge cost to germany in printing Neu Deutschmarks
• Germans losing out to foreigners on the chance to preserve the value of their money

This will mean presenting your passport or German ID Card when you exchange your Euros.

Absolutely possible and doable, and for the Germans, desirable.

Of course, if the Germans did this, the French would follow soon after, and every other Euro tied country, as the Euro imploded and became so much wallpaper. In the near future, stories like this one about ‘criminals’ and €500 notes will seem rather silly. They already are, obviously.

And now for this bit:

a draft law taking national budgetary decisions away from the country’s parliament is creating “unrest”. This law would relinquish a basic democratic right of sovereignty.

The idiotic Greeks are only now beginning to understand what giving up the Drachma actually meant. When they gave up their currency, they gave up their sovereignty. They sold their country to foreigners. Even now, they are begging like… beggars to the French and the Germans for alms so they can keep their fantasy world running.

The people who organised the selling of Greece to Europe should be held responsible for this, and certainly, the Greek citizens should now take matters into their own hands and go straight for privately created money; in other words, the power to create money should not be the responsibility of the Greek government ever again.

Sadly, the Greek socialists are so completely insane and misguided about how money works, they would never be able to identify this as the solution, since they do not posses any knowledge about economics and the true source of the problem.

But I digress.

Lets look at a speech by Margaret Thatcher, the last one she made in the House of Commons as Prime Minister:

Well well well.

It seems that Margaret Thatcher was ‘clued up’ on what money is and its true importance to the sovereignty of a country. Now we see that she was absolutely right about the ‘ECU’, and that the people who wanted to adopt it, and those imbecile traitors who still do, are completely and utterly wrong.

IF (and thats a big ‘if’) you believe that the sovereign nation state is a beneficial thing (and I do not) then in order to keep your sovereignty, you need to be in control of your own laws and your own currency. If you give up control of your currency, you give up the power to control the money supply. In Keynesian economics, this is the main tool, along with interest rates (controlled by a sovereign central bank), used to ‘manage’ an economy. If you are a Keynesian, and you want a sovereign state, you need to keep control of the printing press and the central bank. Giving them both to the Germans is simply insane, even under the upside-down circus voodoo economics of Keynesianism. Even in the bizarre world of Nick Clegg, giving up the pound doesn’t make any sense if he thinks Britain should make its own laws.

Gold broke through the €1000 barrier today, and you can expect it to go even higher if newly printed bailout Euros ever enter the economy.

I say, why wait for these people to either save the Euro or destroy it? By using fiat currency you encourager les autres to carry on with the criminal counterfeiting that they have been getting away with for decades. If everyone simply moved all their wealth into gold and silver, no matter how small the amount, and then only accepted gold and silver for goods and services, the predatory leech state would have no choice but to go along with it.

It would mean the end of central bank counterfeiting and the inflation tax. This would have a beneficial side effect of ending the possibility of paying for war without raising taxes. Huge standing armies would dwindle to sane defence forces, where they persisted at all.

Furthermore, your money, the value of the work you were compensated for that you are storing in worthless paper notes would be safe from ‘theft by evaporation’ which is exactly what the hidden ‘inflation tax‘ is, when you store your earned value in gold. No matter how small your savings are, if you have any at all, they are being evaporated right now if they are denominated in Euros, Dollars or any currency that is being inflated. And don’t let them fool you with euphemisms; ‘Quantitative Easing’ is PRINTING MONEY, or INCREASING THE SUPPLY OF MONEY, which is the inflation tax, or INFLATING THE CURRENCY. Remember; ‘inflation’ is not a rise in prices at Waitrose, the rises in prices are the result of inflation, the symptom if you will.

The death of the Euro and a return to national currencies will be a very good thing IMHO. Without a single currency, you cannot have a single political entity; you cannot have (for example) a European Army, because you cannot fund it. A single, monolithic political entity, like a Federal Europe, is anathema to anyone who loves freedom. Its as far away from Libertarianism as you can get, and Libertarians want to live in spaces that are the polar opposite of Federal Europe.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 14th, 2010 at 5:51 pm and is filed under Economics, Money, Post Tipping Point, The Facts, Told You So.