Keeping Greece in the eurozone is worth the pain: Don Pittis
To misquote Mao Zedong, creating a single currency is not a tea party. Despite former U.S. central banker Alan Greenspan’s disparaging comments about the future of the euro, Americans had far worse problems creating a single currency.
The question facing the Europeans as they hammer out a deal with Greece is whether the long-term advantages of the euro outweigh the pain of the current ructions. If the American experience is any guide, it is worth it.
Greenspan has been widely quoted as predicting the collapse of the eurozone, led by the forced exit of Greece. In the interview on the BBC, however, Greenspan did not specifically link the two, as in cause and effect.
But he did say that, in the long term, the European currency union is untenable.
“There is no way I can conceive of the euro continuing unless and until all of the members of the eurozone become politically integrated,” Greenspan told the BBC’s Mark Mardell.
What Greenspan conveniently seemed to forget is that for Americans (and even Canadians), settling on a single unit of payment was a long and painful process. It costs money. And if U.S. history is any guide, it does not depend on perfect political integration.
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