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Thinking the Unthinkable: Quitting a Currency

Euro doomsayers who expected Greece would tumble out of the currency last year have seemingly underestimated Europeans' willingness to put up with years of hardship rather than gamble on an exit. But European officials who point to the stability of pro-euro sentiment may be making the opposite mistake.

[...] "Devaluation is not an option in Argentina," a World Bank economist said at the time. "With such a high dollarization level, a devaluation would be too costly."

Technically, Argentina had its own currency to return to, but abandoning parity with the dollar was seen as too excruciating to undertake, because almost all debts and business contracts were in the U.S. currency. After three years of recession, though, Argentines appeared to decide en masse that whatever came next couldn't be worse than the unending depression needed to keep their pesos interchangeable with dollars.

On a balmy night in December 2001, the middle class took to the streets of Buenos Aires in an explosion of rage. Riots across the country swept the government from power. Argentina defaulted on its debt soon after, and then the country abandoned the peso's peg to the dollar.

How similar is the situation in southern Europe today? Argentina's economy had contracted by around 8% in the three years before the uprising. By the end of this year, Italy's and Portugal's economies will have shrunk by around 8% from their peak, Spain's by around 6% and Greece's by more than 23%, according to the International Monetary Fund.

EU policy makers who take comfort in the apparent popularity of the euro should consider that Argentines also widely supported the dollar peg—right up until the moment they exploded. In a poll published in December 2001, the same month that Argentines rioted, just 14% said the currency regime should be scrapped; 62% said they wanted to keep it. That's virtually the same proportion of Spaniards and Greeks who say they want to keep the euro today.
Argentina, with its ups and downs since devaluation, isn't a model for Europe. Rather, it's a cautionary tale.

In late 2001, Argentina's economy minister called the country's dollar peg "a permanent institution," whose unthinkable collapse would cause "the dissolution of the basic institutions of the economy and society." A month later it was gone.

Those who say the risk of countries leaving the euro has gone away should consider other times when people viewed a currency regime as sacred, right up until the time they swept it away.

Argentinos fiasco su valiutų valdyba, deja, nesumažino lietuvos banksterių entuziazmo vystyti savają.

Lietuvai vis labiau integruojantis į Vakarus, plėtojantis ekonominiams ryšiams su Europos Sąjungos šalimis ir vykstant atitinkamiems pokyčiams prekybos valiutinėje struktūroje, 1999 m. nutarta litą perorientuoti nuo JAV dolerio prie euro, o 2001 m. priimti sprendimai dėl lito susiejimo su euru 2002 m. vasario 2 d., išlaikant fiksuotą valiutos kursą.

 Taip ir tęsiasi muda.