Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

[BadJuju]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-2...crisis/4324324

At a meeting in Brussels, the leaders agreed that the European Central Bank should have the power to intervene in any of the eurozone's 6,000 banks.
Legislative framework is to be in place by January 1 next year.
But questions remain over exactly when the scheme will start, whether non-euro countries can join, and exactly when any new rescue funds can be used to directly recapitalise banks.
Some believe German chancellor Angela Merkel wants to delay any prospect of using more funds to bail out Spain's banks before Germany's elections in September next year.
The bird's eye bank supervision is supposed to anchor a re-designed economic and monetary union that leaders are beginning to believe - after three years in full crisis mode - can make the euro more attractive to EU states still outside the currency bloc.
After an 11-hour session into the early hours to reach the bank supervision deal, Ms Merkel said it was not about "trying to bargain for extra days or months", but rather ensuring a "solid legal framework" could be found by year-end.
"We need democratic legitimacy," she said, plus further clarity on dealing with eurozone banks in non-euro territories, especially the global financial centre of London, and vice-versa.
Italian prime minister Mario Monti said a Merkel plan to create a "super-commissioner" with powers to intervene directly in states' tax-and-spending plans flopped.
French president Francois Hollande said the summit outcome was "a good deal" but he resisted a German push to change the EU treaty next year after a December summit that is meant to nail down "concrete" moves to tighten centralisation of economic policy.
Mr Hollande said he did not see the "utility of adding new mechanisms".
He did, however, suggest that the fruits of a financial transactions tax (FTT), which a group of EU states want to start next year, be "dedicated to youth training" to get a lost generation of young Europeans into employment.
After the summit, leaders also hailed a 120-billion-euro ($155-billion) package of measures to try to kickstart a climb out of recession as social and political unrest hits Greece and Spain.
Ideas included using proceeds from a proposed tax on financial transactions to tackle youth unemployment currently running in these two countries at more than 50 per cent.
Difficult decisions remain to be taken in two more summits before Christmas, as Britain's David Cameron threatened to veto the European Union's budget for the rest of the decade and snub the Nobel Peace Prize-giving ceremony in Oslo in December.
Conflicts in Syria and Mali, as well as Iran's disputed nuclear program also figured among their chief concerns.

[don]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

Europe's alternative to the euro is . . . the dollar. Enough said?

[BadJuju]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

Sir?

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

Europe's alternative to the euro is . . . the dollar. Enough said?

Um, how about Europe's alternative to the euro is...the Deutschmark, the Franc, the Lira, the Peso, etc etc etc?

Ultimately this currency union will fail because the European peoples are distinct peoples with different characteristic personalities, values, norms, and priorities. A typical German is different from a typical Greek, for example. People with the collectivist mindset - which seems to be most of Europe - like to believe that these fundamental human differences can be resolved by governments passing laws or establishing currencies, but they can't.

The Euro was destined to fail because it tried to form a currency union without a fiscal union. Its architects did this because they knew the peoples of Europe would not stand for giving up their sovereignty like that. So they figured they'd go for what they could get at the time - currency union - and hope that it would work out, or if not, that they could get fiscal union later when the counties of Europe were already deeply bound into the Euro currency.

But the currency union won't work without fiscal union. And the fiscal union won't work without political union. And the political union won't work without cultural union. In other words, trying to get diverse peoples to share a single currency is not going to work unless you can homogenize them, eliminate their differences, so that there are no meaningful cultural differences between a typical German and a typical Greek.

Of course there is no possibility of even approaching something like political and cultural union without serious repression of dissidence. So the collectivists will continue to reach for more and more authoritarian powers to try to force the necessary homogeneity on the peoples of Europe.

So this is how I predict it will play out:

First, they will gain a banking union by pleading that it is better that there be a banking union than that the Euro project be abandoned.

But the banking union only buys time for a little while before the same problems occur in the banking union that have occurred in the currency union.

So next, the collectivists in Europe will argue that what is needed is defacto political union (a United States of Europe, with only vestigial political powers left to the individual European countries). The argument will be made that it is better that there be a defacto political union than that the Euro project fail, with all the terrible consequences of that.

This buys some more time, before the political union begins to fail because of the cultural differences between the Germanys and the Greeces of Europe. Then the collectivists will argue that it is better that cultural differences be extinguished, and there be a defacto "cultural union" than that the Euro project fail.

At this point the attempt at union fails (if it hasn't, in all likelihood, failed sooner) because it is impossible for a cultural union to occur without eliminating ethnic differences between the peoples of Europe. Because culture is in part - probably in large part - a result of genetics, and you can't change the characteristic culture of a people without changing their genetics (through intermarriage, for example). And the truth is that most emotionally healthy people do not want to see their ethnic line disappear.

So as the collectivists move along the progression from currency union to banking union to fiscal union to political union to cultural union to genetic union, at each step along the way a larger percentage of the people in Europe decide they don't want to see their nation, their people, lose control over its destiny or even disappear. At a certain point a critical mass is reached, and the whole Euro project as we know it is thrown out the window. There will be nationalist movements to go back to separate currencies for each nation. And that will be good, because a people really does need to control its own currency in order to control its destiny.

And that is why, regardless of the time they buy with these kick-the-can measures, the Euro is ultimately doomed to fail.

They may end up with a "northern European Euro", since the peoples of northern Europe are fairly genetically similar (compared to the differences between them and the southern Europeans) and consequently have fairly similar cultures, fairly similar political systems, faiirly similar fiscal systems, and fairly similar banking systems. A currency union among genetically similar peoples has a chance of working.

I know many are repelled by any discussion of ethnicity as though genetics has any meaningful role in determining human destiny, but I think that the truth is that it does, and to summarily exclude that truth is to make it impossible to make realistic predictions.

[shiny!]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

Um, how about Europe's alternative to the euro is...the Deutschmark, the Franc, the Lira, the Peso, etc etc etc?

Ultimately this currency union will fail because the European peoples are distinct peoples with different characteristic personalities, values, norms, and priorities. A typical German is different from a typical Greek, for example. People with the collectivist mindset - which seems to be most of Europe - like to believe that these fundamental human differences can be resolved by governments passing laws or establishing currencies, but they can't.

The Euro was destined to fail because it tried to form a currency union without a fiscal union. Its architects did this because they knew the peoples of Europe would not stand for giving up their sovereignty like that. So they figured they'd go for what they could get at the time - currency union - and hope that it would work out, or if not, that they could get fiscal union later when the counties of Europe were already deeply bound into the Euro currency.

But the currency union won't work without fiscal union. And the fiscal union won't work without political union. And the political union won't work without cultural union. In other words, trying to get diverse peoples to share a single currency is not going to work unless you can homogenize them, eliminate their differences, so that there are no meaningful cultural differences between a typical German and a typical Greek.

Of course there is no possibility of even approaching something like political and cultural union without serious repression of dissidence. So the collectivists will continue to reach for more and more authoritarian powers to try to force the necessary homogeneity on the peoples of Europe.

So this is how I predict it will play out:

First, they will gain a banking union by pleading that it is better that there be a banking union than that the Euro project be abandoned.

But the banking union only buys time for a little while before the same problems occur in the banking union that have occurred in the currency union.

So next, the collectivists in Europe will argue that what is needed is defacto political union (a United States of Europe, with only vestigial political powers left to the individual European countries). The argument will be made that it is better that there be a defacto political union than that the Euro project fail, with all the terrible consequences of that.

This buys some more time, before the political union begins to fail because of the cultural differences between the Germanys and the Greeces of Europe. Then the collectivists will argue that it is better that cultural differences be extinguished, and there be a defacto "cultural union" than that the Euro project fail.

At this point the attempt at union fails (if it hasn't, in all likelihood, failed sooner) because it is impossible for a cultural union to occur without eliminating ethnic differences between the peoples of Europe. Because culture is in part - probably in large part - a result of genetics, and you can't change the characteristic culture of a people without changing their genetics

You had me up 'till here.

[Raz]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

Um, how about Europe's alternative to the euro is...the Deutschmark, the Franc, the Lira, the Peso, etc etc etc?

Ultimately this currency union will fail because the European peoples are distinct peoples with different characteristic personalities, values, norms, and priorities. A typical German is different from a typical Greek, for example. People with the collectivist mindset - which seems to be most of Europe - like to believe that these fundamental human differences can be resolved by governments passing laws or establishing currencies, but they can't.

The Euro was destined to fail because it tried to form a currency union without a fiscal union. Its architects did this because they knew the peoples of Europe would not stand for giving up their sovereignty like that. So they figured they'd go for what they could get at the time - currency union - and hope that it would work out, or if not, that they could get fiscal union later when the counties of Europe were already deeply bound into the Euro currency.

But the currency union won't work without fiscal union. And the fiscal union won't work without political union. And the political union won't work without cultural union. In other words, trying to get diverse peoples to share a single currency is not going to work unless you can homogenize them, eliminate their differences, so that there are no meaningful cultural differences between a typical German and a typical Greek.

Of course there is no possibility of even approaching something like political and cultural union without serious repression of dissidence. So the collectivists will continue to reach for more and more authoritarian powers to try to force the necessary homogeneity on the peoples of Europe.

So this is how I predict it will play out:

First, they will gain a banking union by pleading that it is better that there be a banking union than that the Euro project be abandoned.

But the banking union only buys time for a little while before the same problems occur in the banking union that have occurred in the currency union.

So next, the collectivists in Europe will argue that what is needed is defacto political union (a United States of Europe, with only vestigial political powers left to the individual European countries). The argument will be made that it is better that there be a defacto political union than that the Euro project fail, with all the terrible consequences of that.

This buys some more time, before the political union begins to fail because of the cultural differences between the Germanys and the Greeces of Europe. Then the collectivists will argue that it is better that cultural differences be extinguished, and there be a defacto "cultural union" than that the Euro project fail.

At this point the attempt at union fails (if it hasn't, in all likelihood, failed sooner) because it is impossible for a cultural union to occur without eliminating ethnic differences between the peoples of Europe. Because culture is in part - probably in large part - a result of genetics, and you can't change the characteristic culture of a people without changing their genetics (through intermarriage, for example). And the truth is that most emotionally healthy people do not want to see their ethnic line disappear. ...


I know many are repelled by any discussion of ethnicityas though genetics has any meaningful role in determining human destiny, but I think that the truth is that it does, and to summarily exclude that truth is to make it impossible to make realistic predictions.

I agree with your appraisal of the goals of collectivism and I'm totally opposed to them if you mean the Marxist-Leninist world view of creating Suslov's "homo sovieticus", or even a first cousin. But I have difficulty believing that genetics plays as large a role in cultural differences as does economic geography, religious influences and generations of ingrained political philosophies.

Unlike the PC crowd the truth doesn't devastate any investment I've made in core beliefs, and while I'm open to being proved wrong, it will take hard evidence.

[gnk]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

I agree shiny.

Here's how I see it:

My parents were born in Greece, and I was born and raised in the US. My parents were part of a large wave of Greek immigration to the US that occurred in the late 1960s - into the 1970s. And so, I grew up with many Greek Americans while my frequent visits to Greece exposed me to Greeks in Greece.

Greek Americans and Greeks in Greece are genetically identical. But their mindsets are very different, and both groups will attest to that. I'll even take it to another level - Greek Americans weigh more than Greeks in Greece - and yet again, we're talking the same genetics. Go to a Greek pub during the summer and visually, you can pick out the Greek Americans from the Greeks - by appearance, mannerisms, dress, all without listening to them to see what language they speak.

In my view, history and climate - the environment generally, play a much greater role. On a macro level - What did the mediterranean people think of the northern races from Ancient times to the 1600s - the Renaissance? They too had a "genetic view."

History is like that. Who knows, when the next Ice age hits, the Mediterranean and Middle East could once again become flourishing civilizations while the Northerners are called "barbarians."

Another point - the US has its own share of rich and poor states - and genetics no longer plays such a role in the US. Heck, the US probably was genetically more homogenized about 150 years ago than it is today, yet it experienced a civil war between North and South nonetheless... cousins killing cousins...

Furthermore, many EU northern countries initially saw the Euro as a method of increasing their trade surplus. Meanwhile, cash that flooded the South screwed up the Southern economies with a lot of malinvestments, a common phenomenon that occurs with cheap credit. This has also occurred int he US with the advent of fiat and the subsequent rise of the FIRE economy.

Culture is a product of history and environment. It is a challenge for the EU - I won't deny that. But I think the fiscal union issue is the greatest issue. Alabama and New York don't argue about trade differences or the fact that Washington spends more money per tax dollar collected in Alabama than it does in New York. The EU needs to realize this.

One can also argue that Europe went through its own civil war of sorts during WWII - and that the EU is but a long term process of "Reconstruction." We'll see how they handle it. Europe needs a strong leader that thinks of only Europe's future and no other individual country's future - that's the EU's biggest challenge.

[FrankL]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

I agree with your appraisal of the goals of collectivism and I'm totally opposed to them if you mean the Marxist-Leninist world view of creating Suslov's "homo sovieticus", or even a first cousin. But I have difficulty believing that genetics plays as large a role in cultural differences as does economic geography, religious influences and generations of ingrained political philosophies.

Unlike the PC crowd the truth doesn't devastate any investment I've made in core beliefs, and while I'm open to being proved wrong, it will take hard evidence.

Copy that.

I think a northern European Euro could have been (could be?) viable, but the differences with more southern member states are rather big (I include France with the 'Southern' bunch). I've recently relocated from the Germanic part of Europe to France, and it's quite a difference in culture. People care far less about what's good for society, and far more for what's good for themselves here.

I really don't think it's got much to do with genetics, considering that genetically, the European people are relatively homogeneous with all the migration of tribes over the continent. I think religion, entrenched philosophical ideas and geographical location (climate) are far bigger influences. The more north you go in Europe, the harder it used to be to make ones living (grow crops, etc.). Resultantly, the more northern European people have evolved a society where you need to be able to depend on each other to survive. This involves more mutual trust and more altruism. The easier it is to survive by oneself, the less need for these concepts in everyday life.

[don]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

In a Currency War, size matters. If the Euro breaks up into national currencies they would apt to be more vulnerable to the dollar.

[shiny!]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

Copy that.

I think a northern European Euro could have been (could be?) viable, but the differences with more southern member states are rather big (I include France with the 'Southern' bunch). I've recently relocated from the Germanic part of Europe to France, and it's quite a difference in culture. People care far less about what's good for society, and far more for what's good for themselves here.

I really don't think it's got much to do with genetics, considering that genetically, the European people are relatively homogeneous with all the migration of tribes over the continent. I think religion, entrenched philosophical ideas and geographical location (climate) are far bigger influences. The more north you go in Europe, the harder it used to be to make ones living (grow crops, etc.). Resultantly, the more northern European people have evolved a society where you need to be able to depend on each other to survive. This involves more mutual trust and more altruism. The easier it is to survive by oneself, the less need for these concepts in everyday life.

This makes a lot of sense. On the surface at least your observation seems to show up in the social outlooks of say, "socialist" Canada vs the "rugged individualism" of the southern U.S. like Arizona and Texas. Does it manifest similarly in other parts of the world? Going off on another tangent, sorry...

(Secretary with even less economic insight)

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

I agree with your appraisal of the goals of collectivism and I'm totally opposed to them if you mean the Marxist-Leninist world view of creating Suslov's "homo sovieticus", or even a first cousin. But I have difficulty believing that genetics plays as large a role in cultural differences as does economic geography, religious influences and generations of ingrained political philosophies.

Whites have been trying to help sub-Saharan Africans elevate themselves for a century, with almost no success.

On the other hand, when the Japanese were exposed to Western civilizational technologies in the mid-19th century, they - with no need for encouragement and aid from the West - transformed themselves into a modern fighting force in the course of a couple decades, to the extent that they were able to defeat the Russians in a war at the turn of the century.

The Asian peoples in general have had no problem adopting the aspects of Western ways that they find useful and in making themselves highly competitive. Meanwhile the Africans and others have had little or no success doing the same. Is that just because there is different "culture" among all Africans, everywhere, that prevents them from doing so? Or might a more reasonable explanation be genetic differences like IQ?

Similiarly, white liberals have been trying to eradicate the "achievement gap" between whites and blacks in American schools for many decades with no luck. Asians, who were also discriminated against by whites in America in the past, seem to have had no problem doing even better than whites do, and with no assistance from whites. Yet we are to believe that discrimination against blacks, and other "cultural" explanations, explains why blacks cannot close the gap with whites. And this is in a country where white liberals have spared no expense, have hand-held blacks at every turn, in every way, have even instituted legalized discrimination in favor of blacks and against whites, in an attempt to help blacks catch up. To try to argue that it is not genetics, but "culture", that explains the persistent inability of blacks to catch up does not pass the smell test.

There are IQ and other meaningful genetic differences between ethnic groups that influence their ability to make use of civilizational advances. The Japanese had the IQ necessary to take full advantage of the white technologies they learned about. The Africans do not.

And there is an IQ difference between the north and south of Europe too. Yes, the IQ and other genetic differences were undoubtedly the result of environmental pressures. But the differences are genetic, not just cultural.

The liberal narrative is: different environmental pressures led to different cultures, which lead to different civilizational outcomes.

I think the truth is closer to this: different environmental pressures led to different genetic adaptations (including IQ), which are expressed in part through different cultures, and it is both the different genetic makeups and the different cultures (which are an expression, in part, of the genetic differences) which lead to different civilizational outcomes.

The liberal wants to leave genetics out of it entirely, because the liberal view of The Good requires that all human beings be capable of self-inventing themselves, of being whomever they want to be. The liberal wants things that are beyond our control - like our genetics (eg IQ, race, gender, sexual orientation) - to be unimportant in determining who we are or what we are capable of.

But the truth of life is that who we are and what we are capable of are in fact determined to a significant degree by things beyond our control, including our genetics - whether we are smart or dumb, masculinely aggressive or femininely yielding, etc. We do have a choice about how we conduct our lives, about whether we have good character and live with integrity, but we can't make those genetic choices, and they do matter.

So I stand by my argument that there are genetic differences between southern Europeans and northern Europeans that matter here. There are IQ differences, testosterone differences, and other genetically-based personality differences that matter. "Culture" works as a safe liberal proxy for race here, because a person could change their culture whereas they cannot change their race. But you won't see Greeks adopting German culture or Germans adopting Greek culture because there are innate genetic differences that makes those cultures bad fits for the respective peoples.

One proof of this would be the "twin studies" conducted by the University of Minnesota. You can find out about them by googling it, but a short description is that they studied cases where genetically identical twins were adopted by different families. The outcomes of the twins were basically the same regardless of the differrences in their environment. Similarly, when children of different races are adopted by the same parents, they do differently - and along the expected racial lines - even though they had the same environment.

[FrankL]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

Translating possible results from genetic diversification between different races over many tens of thousands of years to the variation within Europeans is pushing it a bit, in my opinion.

Do you have any idea on the genetic diversity between European countries? Are you aware of the huge amount of migration that has occurred over the last ten thousand years within the Europe continent? Are you aware of the huge difference in mentality, culture, etc. between genetically nearly identical sub-populations? e.g. look at the differences between Irish, Welsh and Scots. Or the Flemish and the Dutch. Etc. These differences are big and very likely are not due to genetics, but due to other factors, as have been proposed before in this thread.

It's one thing to deny differences in genetics leading to differences in culture, i.e. the liberal ideology, etc. but it's the other extreme to try and frame genetics as the cause of any substantial difference in culture between nations in Europe. Not likely at all, with the facts as we know them right now.

I suggest you read up on how factors like the language one speaks influence ones thinking processes.. or which religions in Europe are popular in which parts, and why, and how this affects society. Or that you give more convincing arguments why genetics contribute to a significant degree to the differences we see in Europe.

[radon]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

So I stand by my argument that there are genetic differences between southern Europeans and northern Europeans that matter here. There are IQ differences, testosterone differences, and other genetically-based personality differences that matter. "Culture" works as a safe liberal proxy for race here, because a person could change their culture whereas they cannot change their race. But you won't see Greeks adopting German culture or Germans adopting Greek culture because there are innate genetic differences that makes those cultures bad fits for the respective peoples.

I would not rule out the chance to preserve the Euro. With the proper breeding techniques we could stabilize the GDP within say 100 years.

DrStrangelove.jpg

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

Translating possible results from genetic diversification between different races over many tens of thousands of years to the variation within Europeans is pushing it a bit, in my opinion.

That may be so. My core point is this: there are differences between southern Europeans and northern Europeans that go very deep - whether it is as deep as their genes or only as deep as their cultures - and that trying to bring such different peoples under one currency will not work in the long run, though the day that this is obvious to the European masses will be put off as long as possible by the transnational socialists running the continent. They will try to force a "union" at more and more intrusive levels - currency, banking, fiscal, political, cultural - as the non-viability of the union at the less intrusive levels progressively becomes manifest.

How much who we are is dependent on things we can control versus things we can't control is an interesting and important question. The liberal world view is based on the assumption that human beings are not defined by their genes in any important way. The Swedes are leaders in trying to force this view on the public by considering laws to prohibit men from standing up to urinate since women can't, for example, and other ridiculous Orwellian efforts at social engineering.

It is obvious to any reasonably intelligent and impartial observer that there are personality differences between men and women that are purely genetic. Genetics shapes the characteristic interests and values that are different for men and women taken as a whole (despite what Swedish leftists want to believe). If men and women have different personality characteristics (taken as a whole) because of their genetic differences, then the same may easily be true of races and of ethnicities. The widespread and consistent differences in civilizational capability of the races, regardless of their location around the world, supports that argument.

The general assumption seems to be that a people's culture is just something that's the result of environmental factors and historical quirks. I doubt it. My bet is that the genetics of a people has a lot to do with the sort of culture they develop. Low-IQ people probably develop certain sorts of cultures that high-IQ people don't develop, and vice versa.

It may turn out to be true that it actually takes very little genetic difference to yield a significant difference in personality. The various dog breeds vary so little, genetically, that it wasn't possible until fairly recently to tell them apart genetically. And yet there is a very consistent and marked difference in intelligence and personality among the dog breeds. A pit bull and a golden retriever are very close genetically and worlds apart in temperament.

Nevertheless the point I wanted to make is that it is not going to work to try to integrate quite different peoples into one political/cultural entity, as would be necessary to make a single European currency work in the long term. I think the only reason they got the Euro implemented in the first place was that each of the various European countries really didn't have to give up much of anything in terms of control over their political and fiscal policies to join it. When they are told they are going to have to give up essential parts of their sovereignty to maintain it, I bet on them quitting it, sooner or later.

[FrankL]

Re: Europe's Leaders Have Agreed to Start Building a Single Banking Union for the Eurozone from the Beginning of Next Year.

That may be so. My core point is this: there are differences between southern Europeans and northern Europeans that go very deep - whether it is as deep as their genes or only as deep as their cultures - and that trying to bring such different peoples under one currency will not work in the long run, though the day that this is obvious to the European masses will be put off as long as possible by the transnational socialists running the continent. They will try to force a "union" at more and more intrusive levels - currency, banking, fiscal, political, cultural - as the non-viability of the union at the less intrusive levels progressively becomes manifest.

How much who we are is dependent on things we can control versus things we can't control is an interesting and important question. The liberal world view is based on the assumption that human beings are not defined by their genes in any important way. The Swedes are leaders in trying to force this view on the public by considering laws to prohibit men from standing up to urinate since women can't, for example, and other ridiculous Orwellian efforts at social engineering.

It is obvious to any reasonably intelligent and impartial observer that there are personality differences between men and women that are purely genetic. Genetics shapes the characteristic interests and values that are different for men and women taken as a whole (despite what Swedish leftists want to believe). If men and women have different personality characteristics (taken as a whole) because of their genetic differences, then the same may easily be true of races and of ethnicities. The widespread and consistent differences in civilizational capability of the races, regardless of their location around the world, supports that argument.

The general assumption seems to be that a people's culture is just something that's the result of environmental factors and historical quirks. I doubt it. My bet is that the genetics of a people has a lot to do with the sort of culture they develop. Low-IQ people probably develop certain sorts of cultures that high-IQ people don't develop, and vice versa.

It may turn out to be true that it actually takes very little genetic difference to yield a significant difference in personality. The various dog breeds vary so little, genetically, that it wasn't possible until fairly recently to tell them apart genetically. And yet there is a very consistent and marked difference in intelligence and personality among the dog breeds. A pit bull and a golden retriever are very close genetically and worlds apart in temperament.

Nevertheless the point I wanted to make is that it is not going to work to try to integrate quite different peoples into one political/cultural entity, as would be necessary to make a single European currency work in the long term. I think the only reason they got the Euro implemented in the first place was that each of the various European countries really didn't have to give up much of anything in terms of control over their political and fiscal policies to join it. When they are told they are going to have to give up essential parts of their sovereignty to maintain it, I bet on them quitting it, sooner or later.

I agree with your assessment on the Euro situation for the most part. It's a shame that you let certain controversial beliefs (which may or may not turn out to be true, but which you cannot substantiate right now) show in your writing, when this is not relevant to the the main points you want to make. For example, it is very easy to attack the liberal ideology without claiming that genetics (or even average IQ) is at the basis of the cultural differences between European countries. Introducing these type of beliefs into your writing undermines your otherwise possibly valid position to a lot of readers.

Finland might quit first, causing a snowball effect to Germany (and then, subsequently to Austria and other economic vassal states of Germany, like the Netherlands). I think that Germany by itself won't quit until more nationalist/populist politicians get into power; a catalyst from Finland might do the trick too though.