German Windfall Profits From Exiting The Euroby Daniel R. Amerman, CFA | April 19, 2010ermany is a nation that fears inflation for good historical reason, and among the nations of the world, Germany places a particularly high priority on price stability. Yet, so long as Germany remains in the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) with the euro as its currency, Germany may not be in control of German inflation. In particular, the current crisis with Greece, and the crises that may follow with other nations such as Portugal, Italy, Spain and Ireland may prove disastrous for German investors and taxpayers. For so long as it is in the EMU, Germany may have no effective choice but to bail out countries that have been running up huge deficits – despite Germany itself not having the economic capacity to do this for all of Europe on an indefinite basis, let alone the political will to do so. These are among the reasons why in a letter to clients late last week, Morgan Stanley warned that Germany may leave the euro and the EMU and that investors should be prepared for this event.
If this event happens, it may create an enormous financial windfall for millions of individual Germans, as well as German companies, not to mention the German government. While leaving the monetary union is still far from certain as Germany also has strong economic and political incentives to stay in the EMU, in this article we will say “what if” and explore some of the startling benefits for nations and individuals of quickly exiting a failing monetary union – as well as the many perils. But while the specifics of this article are about Germany (and France), the implications go far beyond Germans and Germany (although there are very important implications for arbitrage opportunities with German companies). Rather, in this world of financial crisis and sovereign debt crisis, there are powerful related wealth and financial security implications for individuals in every country.
(Please note that the European economic and monetary union (the EMU) is not the same thing as the European Union (the EU), and Germany may potentially leave the monetary EMU without exiting the political EU.)
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