(…) If I can spend my dollar in Oregon but not in California, it is really the same dollar? I think not.
Is this how the Eurozone experiment will end? Not with a formal “exit,” but with a return to banking dominated by national boundaries and enforced by capital controls? No longer a true common currency, but a dozen currencies sharing the same name, each with a different value?
There will be another banking crisis in Europe (just as a bank will fail in some US state) and depositors are now aware that they are fair game in any crisis response, so capital flight will intensify at an earlier stage in the crisis. As may have been noted, European policymakers find rapid crisis resolution to be something of a challenge, thus accelerated capital flight will necessitate a more rapid imposition of capital controls in the future – and with each round of capital controls, a new sub-euro will be born.
Bottom Line: Europe’s response to the Cyprus situation will have long-lasting impacts on the Eurozone experiment itself, none of the good. Indeed, the imposition of capital controls should lead one to wonder if the “solution” to Cyprus is effectively an exit from the Eurozone is everything but name. And don’t forget that the crisis also threatens to destabilize the region geopolitcally. I don’t think that “disaster” is too strong a word in this case.
Looks like the answer is yes – but the EU elites don’t have to formally recognize the exit.
