Deutsche: Only One Person Can Save Euro, but He Died Long Ago

Bilal Hafeez of Deutsche Bank AG recently spoke at a conference in Germany. He spoke about theEuro and said that he believes one person can save it. The problem is that the person died long ago. Deutsche Bank recently transcripted the speech given at the annual Deutsche Bank Mittelstand (small and medium-sized enterprises) FX conference in Hamburg, Germany on 7 March, 2013. Now some German ‘Brains Turn To Jelly Guten Tag. Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch. Zum Beispiel, wie komme ich am besten zum Bahnhof. Heute, werde ich über Währungen sprechen,’ The full speech about the Euro and its savior can be found below:

1. I’ll have to switch to English before I further insult the language of Goethe. As a parent, I’m always on the look-out for parenting tips. So it came as a nice surprise to watch a riveting British documentary called “The Child of Our Time”

2. The documentary has been regularly broadcasting the development of a varied group of children since their births in 1999 (and 2000). The latest showed them entering their teenage years. What I found particularly worrying were the boys. They wore their jeans low revealing their underwear, they seemed addicted to violent computer games and seemed to grunt rather than talk to adults. My son is five, so I have some time before he reaches his teens.

Nevertheless it prompted me to look into how I could raise my son such that he ended up being well-rounded. Research shows that one of the key factors for teenage development is having a positive male role model other than the father. The reason for this is that teenagers are rebelling against authority, which sidelines the father. Boys also go through significant physical changes, not least their pre-frontal cortex in their brain essentially turning into jelly just like their baby years. They therefore need structure to transition into manhood, and a male role model can provide that

3. Europe’s Saviour Who else has entered the terrible teens? The Euro-Area! It was born in 1999, and so is currently fourteen years old. It has all the hallmarks of teenage angst. It is ridden with internal conflicts, it is groping around for structure, and it is suspicious of authority. So who can be a positive role model for the Euro-Area? Well it cannot be the “fathers”: Germany or France. It has to be an external figure that all Europeans respect, and whose motives and character are beyond dispute. That rules out anyone living as even the most competent person will make missteps or have something from their past dredged up to undermine them. That leaves us with historical figures whose lives have been laid bare by history. I can only think of one figure that is respected by most Europeans and has never sinned, Jesus!

Who’s to blame, and who is blameless

If everyone in the Euro-area would adopt the principle of not casting stones unless they were without sin then the constant accusations would stop. And remember, everyone has breached agreements in one way or another, even the stronger countries like Germany and France. How so? Well, all Euro-area countries were supposed to follow the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), which amongst other things imposed a limit on of fiscal deficits of 3% and of government debt to GDP of 60%. Both Germany and France breached the SGP in the early 2000s and suffered no penalties. I should add that both Irelandand Spain met the SGP rules before 2008. So blaming “weaker” countries for not following agreements rings
hollow.

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