Eurozone: Euro Falling?
In recent news, many of the Eurozone Financial Ministers met to discuss the value of the Euro, how they will reform the outstanding debt situation within the Eurozone, and how they will respond to strengthen its power. However, discussions have come to a standstill as German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is only looking out for the best interests of her country. She wants those financially irresponsible countries, such as Greece, to reform their ways and is, moreover, concentrating her energy instead on changing Eurozone treaties to allow closer fiscal union and supervision of member nations' budgets, even though analysts have told the Euro-bearing nations that the currency might take a harsh blow from which it will never recover, possibly leading to the complete dissolution of the Euro currency. People are saying that this will only have an effect on Europe, but they are wrong. The official decisions that are made will affect the rest of the world and will either cause Europe to rise up to the occasion or make the world enter another Era of Depression. It is because of these reasons that show Europe’s debt crisis has forestalled market activity; they are implementing characteristics of a mercantilist society, modernizing their economic systems to benefit only themselves, and a globalized economy will occur, whether its one of prosperity or trepidation.
Mercantilism which is the economic theory that European governments used serving only their countries’ economic interests best, has been around for centuries, even before the predominant states of Athens and Greece in Early Ancient civilizations. In the worsening economic system in Europe as discussed in "In Europe debt crisis, markets and masses wait for Merkel to blink" by Henry Chu of the Los Angeles Times, mercantilism is very apparent. “Eurobonds were reportedly on the agenda for discussion at Tuesday's meeting of finance ministers in Brussels, but no breakthrough was announced.” This statement shows that even financial ministers today, elected to their chairs within their own governments, are the primary directors controlling and regulating what goes on within individual economies; this directly correlates to Roger R. Mettan’s piece, “Government and Society in Louis XIV’s France.” In this primary source, Jean- Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s financial minister, is addressing intendants on their duties. “…requires you to keep watch over everything involving the coinage throughout your generality, which is to say that only coins authorized by royal edict and decree may be in circulation.” This is relevant since mercantilism deals with a government, or in this case, a collective group of nations, monitoring and regulating what will be done with their currency and how they will strengthen its power in.
Also, in the article, “markets…rushing to unload sovereign debt and making it prohibitively expensive for governments, even those in the core of Europe, to borrow money.” (Chu) Another important part of mercantilism is shown with this excerpt. In mercantilist societies, a governing “body” will hike the price up on a “good,” in this case the good is money borrowing, to where there are only few governments who can obtain it. In turn, similarly relates to the same quote by Roger R. Mettan. If people are not persistent in their watch for false moneys and regulation of allowed moneys that flow through their countries, the collapse of their economies is prevalent.
Modernization is a theory that has to do with examining something; judging what should be preserved and what should be discarded. It can improve and renew things within societies, but at the same time is dangerous. It can kill what people would want to be revived. In Chu’s article, he discusses the fact that even though Germany is the economic powerhouse of all of the participating Eurozone countries, it yielded dismal bond sale results within recent weeks. In an effort to try and help restore faith in Eurozone economies, the bond sales only made the situation direr as the sale results showed complete lack of interest and faith of the Euro recovering and in turn, would be left behind as an instable country left to fend for it to survive. In the painting, The Black Ships, the Japanese portrayed what they saw the Americans of their time as. The grotesque imagery, demonic icons, black clouds; the Japanese see these as a foreshadowing of their demise. In order for them to become more modernized and survive in this New World, the Japanese had to decide to make certain reforms, and among them included the disbandment of the daimyo and samurai, who at the time had a vast amount of military power. As a result of the ideas, processes, and inventions the Americans brought to them in hopes of creating a better nation ultimately had a negative impact on their cultural identity, especially with the dissolution of the daimyo and samurai. And now we move on to Greece. The European government wants to bail them out, but that will only hurt what they’re trying to accomplish, a successful bailout plan. When the idea was proposed for allowing the European Central Bank to buy up bonds of this troubled nation and issue “Eurobonds” which would create a collective debt backed by all 17 Eurozone nations, so as to try and build up Greece’s economy again, Merkel refused this idea as well. While this could benefit the Eurozone countries, ultimately, it is too daunting of an idea because of the potential drawbacks the other 16 nations might suffer from as a result. When an idea is proposed in trying to modernize something, careful deliberation must be taken because what you are trying to accomplish may fail instead. Economic Globalization deals with increasing economic interdependence of national economies across the world through imports and exports, services, technology and capital. Pertaining to Chu’s article, as we move further along in the twenty-first century, nations are banding together and using collective resources that will help to better each other’s economies and progress. As we are attempting this though, every market, company, and business being publically traded are at a standstill while Europe figures out how to proceed because even though this is happening in Europe, it will have a global effect. “Merkel has refused to be cowed by the fluctuations of the markets, perhaps because Germany is in far better economic shape than its neighbors and because she thinks a bitter dose of market medicine might do wayward nations some good.” (Chu) This quote brings to mind the idea of post-war repercussions in the early twentieth century. As a result of Germany losing the war and causing pain to everyone involved, they were forced to pay those countries back the appropriated amount of money based on reconstruction and rehabilitation standards. This shows that there are still hard feelings by the German people seeing as we left them in a state of financial distress, they are now not empathetic with other countries struggles because of the harsh state we left them in so long ago. And seeing as some countries are still in a state of agitation amidst this financial talk, the success of a global market occurring at this time seems very improbable. Concisely, with the internal struggles of the Eurozone, many an effect may or may not happen, whether it is for better or worse. Modernization of countries, even though it can encounter problems along the way, is crucial in today’s world. There are too many Third World countries that need to develop and advance so that the rest of the world may as well. Mercantilist societies will struggle as foreign countries wanting to do business will be so weak, financially, that we will not even be able to do equal business with them. Finally, a Globalized Economy will only ever occur once all nations can get along with one another and set forth a universal set of laws and regulations that limit those stronger countries from having too much power and allowing smaller countries to catch back up.

Works Cited: Chu, Henry. "In Europe Debt Crisis, Markets and Masses Wait for Merkel to Blink." Los Angeles Times. 30 January 2013. Web. Strayer, Robert W. Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. Print. Roger R. Mettan, Government and Society in Louis XIV’s France (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1977), 18-21. Strayer, Robert W. Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources. “The Black Ships.” Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 907. Print.

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[ 1 ]. A market (financial in this case) is any marketplace where buyers and sellers participate in the trade of assets such as equities, bonds, currencies and derivatives and are typically defined by having transparent pricing, basic regulations on trading, costs and fees and market forces determining the prices of securities that trade.
[ 2 ]. Intendants are, in general terms, tax collectors back in the time of Louis XIV, but nowadays are representative of their country’s government and are responsible for helping to form the government budget, stimulate the economy, and control finances
[ 3 ]. Daimyo is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings