Eurozone countries don't have currency sovereignty, that was the whole point of the Euro, to "discipline" states and prevent them from spending by putting the printing press in Frankfurt
The EU countries under eurozone has no currency sovereignty because money creation is subjugated to the European Central Bank but every member state has their own separate fiscal policies, and the ECB has no mechanism to absorb the imbalances between different member states.
It will go down in history as one of the stupidest ideas humankind has ever implemented in practice.
But in reality it’s not so “stupid” because neoliberal bankers in the rich countries like France and Germany made a lot of profit out of it, and will use this “running out of money” excuse to impose austerity and extract even more wealth and funnel them to the very top 0.1%.
money creation is subjugated to the European Central Bank but every member state has their own separate fiscal policies, and the ECB has no mechanism to absorb the imbalances between different member states
wait fr? they can't just coordinate printing more money? what a bunch of jokers lmao
But he specifically said Europe is running out of money. If he means France is running out of money, that's a different problem because it's like you said. It's actually quite similar to how the US has currency sovereignty but individual US states have to have balanced budgets.
You take people's money and you can say goodbye to the EU.
This is so fucking stupid. Even the tories understand that you don't fuck with people's savings, respecting the triple lock on pensions and the like. The vast majority of savings are held either by elderly people preparing to survive on it, or by the financial class.
Every single one of them will turn on the project. There will be a very significant number of bourgeoisie joining the side of trying to end the EU at this news.
It sounds like what he wants to do is create an investment product for people with savings. So instead of having it on your bank account you give it to the EU / member government to invest. The idea is then that it is wisely invested and thus creates profit that can be payed back as interest. So not that radical. The fact that they resort to this of course is another indication that the sanctions are backfiring immensely, but to me it doesn’t sound like the apocalypse.
Edit: although the fact that he keeps rambling on about AI makes me think a lot of Western European upper middle class families will loose some of their savings after the money disappears in some kind of AI Blockchain scheme. Or more realistically they get their savings + interest but governments need to cut healthcare spending to cover it.
Yeah, it is. The thing is 35000 billion euros is a lot of money and can absolutely improve Europe's manufacturing capabilities, and fund social programs for people. The problem is he's talking about going into "European's savings" which I have no idea what he means. I'm under the assumption that they'll start taxing savings, bc just taking people's cash is too extreme.
Ah, I see hexbear has made the acquaintance of Bruno Le Maire, some of you have known him for a few hours, weve had to endure his nonsense for years now. welcome to the sad club of those aware this man exists and is a minister of finance.
I’m afraid of all the good parks and bridges being taken by previous waves of homeless people by the time it’s mine turn to be kicked onto the streets.
It might also just accelerate the fascicisation of Europe, which is likely good for no-one, let alone for Europe's working class. Unless one's holds to some kind of accelerationist theory of revolutionary conditions.
Think about it this way: the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Soviet Union in 1945 delayed the fascistization of Europe by about 80-100 years. It was always bound to happen as soon as the Soviet Union is gone.
Interesting example of how neoliberal strategies of extending the reach of financial instruments seems to inevitably come for the lower and middle classes' (or broad working class's) savings.
I haven't had the time to look at the proposals in any detail, but in essence, it seems that he's just restating the classic economic logic that the source of investment is savings, and so if there is a mismatch between them, this will cause a negative output gap in growth, both due to demand and suppl-side factors. It is also obviously motivated by the concerns of mainstream economists that the lagging productivity (in particular of labor, because labour is the source of all value and how they form a common unit of value and productivity measurement, as Marx understood) is a serious issue and that AI is the way to deal with it. Also interesting the classic decrepit European realization that they are falling behind the US and China (and Russia, for that matter) on these fronts. Though it is strange how that ignores other key factors determining investment, like expected returns and interest rates (which are rising). Also, if private businesses are already unwilling to invest because they know that savings and income are too low, and people not willing enough to engage in borrowing sprees, to make their expected returns on investment profitable, then how would an investment fund financed with savings deal with this issue? He might argue that more efficient capital markets and new investment vehicles leverage savings might deal with that, but it is again not clear to me that the private sector is going to be that motivated. Most of the interest of private firms so far in AI has been either in superficial labor-saving areas like branding, website design, and potentially in more efficient systems of labor surveillance, monitoring, control and time-management, as opposed to any real tremendous gains in real labor productivity, though the future is ofc an unknown country. It also seems to ignore the naturally monopolistic tendencies of a sector like investment in advanced AI software and hardware, which would not suggest to me that the Europeans can easily compete with the US or China, who have a head-start in terms of concentration, advantages of scale and greater levels of government support.
Funny also how none of the French liberals are asking which social group's savings are going to bear the brunt of this. There is ofc no mention of the trillions in the bourgeoisie's offshore bank accounts. Given the high rates of taxes (at least perceived) in France already it's not clear how this would be popular with anybody.
Most of the interest of private firms so far in AI has been either in superficial labor-saving areas like branding, website design, and potentially in more efficient systems of labor surveillance, monitoring, control and time-management, as opposed to any real tremendous gains in real labor productivity, though the future is ofc an unknown country.
All labour-saving is also productivity enhancing. You can't get rid of labour without enhancing the labour output of remaining labourers (even if it also degrades the quality of their work).
Yea what I meant is that the Germans have a disproportionate amount of control over the ECB (much like how the U.S. has almost complete control over NATO). The ECB could tell members to raise taxes (on the rich else its just austerity in a different way), issue bonds (which will increase deficit which the neolibs consider to be 'bad') or 'print' Euros by itself (not really necessary).
States have so much secrecy in military and intelligence operations and projects. I never understood why they don’t simply print a lot of money and not tell anyone the true amount in circulation. What are the citizens going to do? Go to every bank and store and ask the manager for a total count?