Time to break up the eurozone

Time to break up the eurozone?:

The irony, though, is that any number of people predicted this exact scenario over two decades ago, when the euro was little more than a dream for the most ardent of Europhiles. Even while the rules for the euro were being created, they were simultaneously being broken.

What the eurozone doomsayers knew .. was that a "one-size-fits-all" monetary policy was totally impractical .. Take Ireland, for example .. With accession to the eurozone came low interest rates and a flood of cheap money, a housing and construction boom, and the eventual catastrophic bust ..

At some point, political will must face economic reality, and that involves acknowledging that the money simply is not there .. This means at least a partial default by .. Italy, Ireland, Greece, Portugal and probably Spain ..to keep bailing them out is just to throw good money after bad.

And, of course, bailouts only serve to increase the moral hazard – what incentive does a country such as Greece have to get its economic house in order when it implicitly knows that it will be bailed out if it fails to do so?

As with all political creations, there is often a yawning chasm between what should happen and what will happen. An orderly break up of the eurozone is what should happen .. What will possibly happen, however, is a fiscal centralisation .. A fiscal union to match the political union. It will surely not be sustainable – how long will already aggrieved German taxpayers be willing to fund less competitive Mediterranean economies?