Cyprus in last-ditch bid to agree bailout (40% haircut)

[BlueStreak]

48. At some point, everybody would probaby be better off killing the Euro

This whole concept was doomed from the start. If you thing teabaggers in Red states are bad, they are downright neighborly compared to the various European countries. But there is a strong parallel. In both cases, you have the renegades being the ones who are essentially on the dole -- with the lower incomes, greater poverty, lower education levels, overall lack of economic drive.

The US would have been far better off letting the Southern welfare states form their own country. The EC would have been far better off not including the welfare countries in their common currency. It was going to blow up. The only question was when. And that still is the only real question. Meanwhile this drip-drip-drip of Euro problems is holding back the American recovery.

At least in the case of the USA, we had a good reason for not allowing the welfare states to secede: the end of slavery. There was no similar compelling moral reason for form this ridiculous Euro thing.

I still wouldn't mind seeing the USA cleave off the welfare states and shed that burden forever, but that isn't going to happen. It is far more likely that the Euro will end up dropping their welfare states: Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal etc. because there really isn't much that ties them together other than the currency. And the currency linkage is the biggest problem.

Ironically, before they went to a common currency, they had formed the "European Community" structure that actually was very beneficial in enabling commerce and unifying regulations throughout the region. If they would have stopped there, that would have probably been a good thing.