COSTLY DELUSIONS

The euro and America (Martin Walker, 8/14/2003, UPI)

Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson is either a desperate man prepared to say anything to stave off a humiliating political defeat, or he is telling us all something fundamental about the real purpose of the European currency, the euro.

Seven million Swedes go to the polls next month in a referendum on whether or not they should give up their traditional Swedish crown and join the euro, as the Social Democratic premier and his government recommend. Although the bulk of big business, the media, the political classes and elite opinion are in favor of joining the other 12 members of the eurozone, the latest opinion polls suggest they could lose the vote by as much as 10 percent to 12 percent.

So facing an uphill final lap of his campaign, Persson told a rally Saturday in the industrial town of Skelleftea some 600 miles north of Stockholm that Swedes should vote Yes to help counterbalance the economic supremacy of the United States.

This dynamic has been obvious for months, as the Europeans helped drive their own economies into recession by keeping the Euro artificially high against the dollar, just in order to be able to pretend that they are a serious counterbalance to the U.S. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 14, 2003 9:42 AM