THERE IS NO EUROPE:

Maybe Milton Was Right About the Euro (Desmond Lachman, February 23, 2010, The American)

At the time of the euro’s launch in January 1999, Milton Friedman famously observed that the euro would not survive the first major European economic recession. The sovereign debt crisis presently engulfing Greece, Spain, and Portugal in the wake of the “Great Recession” would suggest that, in the end, Friedman will prove to have been right. It does not seem too early for U.S. policy makers to start pondering the serious international economic and geopolitical ramifications that would flow from any eventual breakup of the euro.

The main motivation for the euro’s creation was political rather than economic. It was thought that creating a single European currency would advance the dream of an integrated Europe that could rival the United States on the international stage. While it was recognized that the euro rested on the shakiest of economic fundamentals, it was hoped that the single currency would force economic change on its wayward Mediterranean member countries. It would do so by requiring those countries to undertake deep structural economic reforms and to abide by the strict Maastricht Treaty rules for individual member countries’ budget policies.

Sadly, economic events have not played out as the euro’s founders had hoped.