Have you got £500 to spare?

[anotheoldgit]

http://tinyurl.com/5vqmho9

Why should cash strapped Britain help to bail out another EU induced failure, the 'single currency'?

Yet another Labour triumph it would seem?

/// Last year, in the dying days of the Labour government, then Chancellor Alistair Darling signed Britain up to an EU-wide bailout fund that does not expire until 2013.///

[Old_Geezer]

I guess the problem is that a nearby failed economy makes tensions for all, reduced ability for the rest of us to trade, and potential hostilities. If the clique look after their own, those that help can hoped to be helped should it ever be needed. That said I think those in the Eurozone have primary responsibility for the mess they cause.

[ChuckFickens]

You're forgetting about the bailout the UK needed in the 70's that amounted to about £140 billion (in today's money) then?

Or would you rather the rest of the world told us to bugger off and it's our problem when we need help?

[Gromit]

What has this got to do with the single currency?

The UK was not in the single currency, and also suffered in the Economic collapse after the banking crisis, as did many other countries who do not use the 'Euro'.

The UK does a lot of trade with Portugal and the IGS. A lot of UK jobs and prosperity are dependent on these countries keeping trading with us. We are part of the bail out because it is not very clever to let your customers go bankrupt. If they did, we would soon follow.

[Old_Geezer]

The vulnerability of each nation and its ability to react well is limited by a single currency. It is always involved with those country's economies.

[Davethedog]

It is worth remembering this "bail out" is a loan not a given. The money has to be repayed.

There is a much bigger picture involved here.

[anotheoldgit]

"What has this got to do with the single currency?"

/// The Chancellor and fellow finance ministers agreed a Europe-wide £68billion deal to prop up the single currency by rescuing Portugal,///

Incidentally I was under the impression that Britain bailed itself out, I may be wrong but I can't remember the EU propping us up.

[ChuckFickens]

How can you bail yourself out?

It was the IMF that bailed us out.

[Davethedog]

Its not rocket science.

We trade with the people in the EU they are the prime countrys we trade with, we but their Tomatoes they buy our apples etc, etc collapse of those markets would mean the collapse of our economy.

[Gromit]

The PIGSs problem is not the single currency, their problems are more underlining than that. Likewise, the UK ability to avert a similar fate happening to use had nothing to do with being independent of the Euro. We did not do anything with our currency that averted financial meltdown.

There are 23 countries using the Euro single currency, and the vast majority coped as well as the UK did.

[Gromit]

AOG

What the Finance Ministers agreed to, and the Daily Mail interpretation are somewhat different.

The Finance Ministers said
// "Ministers concur with the [European Commission and the European Central Bank] that providing a loan to Portugal is warranted to safeguard financial stability in the euro area and the EU as a whole," EU ministers said in a joint statement. //

(In other words, if one goes bankrupt it will have a knock on effect on the rest of us)

The Daily Mail have written that as
// Finance ministers agreed a Europe-wide £68billion deal to prop up the single currency //

It is in the UKs interest to be part of the bail out of Portugal and the others.

[VHG]

>>>we but their Tomatoes they buy our apples etc

Judging by my supermarket isn't it more like:

WE but their Tomatoes and WE buy their apples etc

[Gromit]

Apples may not have been the best example, but we export vast amounts of produce to Europe

// UK exports of fresh potatoes to Holland in January were 11 times higher than the three year average.

According to HM Revenue and Customs total fresh and processed (raw material equivalent) imports to the UK, from June 2010 to January 2011, reached 690,216 tonnes with 86 per cent originating from Holland and Belgium.

Exports of 218,771 tonnes left the UK from June 2010 to January 2011, with almost 80 per cent of this volume to Estonia, Spain and Holland. //

http://www.potatobusi...atoes-to-holland-soar

[Davethedog]

Agreed Apples wasn't the best example.

[New Judge]

I don’t think your principle economic assumptions are quite correct, Gromit.

“The PIGSs problem is not the single currency...”

Whilst the initial cause of their problem may not have been the single currency (though some would argue otherwise) their inability to deal with their financial meltdown is absolutely down to their membership of the Euro. Their economies are fallaciously linked to those of countries completely different to their own. They cannot react to changing circumstances by adjusting their interest rates or the value of their currencies. The larger more dominant economies hold sway and exchange and interest rates are set to suit them.

“Likewise, the UK ability to avert a similar fate happening to use had nothing to do with being independent of the Euro. We did not do anything with our currency that averted financial meltdown.”

Er... Exchange rate for Sterling to Euro at the end of 2007 – 1.48. Today – 1.11. A devaluation of 25%. A similar devaluation against the US Dollar has occurred (2.02 to 1.64, a devaluation of some19 %). Interest rates? Bank of England rate in December 2007, 5.5% (just reduced on December 6th from 5.75%). Today (and for the past two years) 0.5%.

Membership of the Euro has been an absolute disaster for the PIIGS. Their economies have been slaughtered and they have no tools available to combat their troubles. The same fate would have befallen the UK had we not been able to take the measures you suggest have not been available to us by virtue of our independant currency.