this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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More Swedes want to switch currency from the krona to the Euro,Β with support the highest it's been since 2009, according to a survey by Gothenburg University's SOM Institute.

Paywall? https://archive.is/ZXdUu

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (21 children)

Giving up currency sovereignity is a terrible idea! That means the government has to "balance" its budget and can't print money to make up for shortfalls, forcing austerity.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (19 children)

The government has to balance the budget anyway, and devaluing your currency is a bit like peeing your pants. It's nice and warm for a bit and then increasingly uncomfortable.

Inflation goes up, you see capital fights because you're not a reliable currency, you increase your national debt, and you instantly make the entire population poorer than their neighbor countries.

So while there are some benefits, most economists argue against it.

I can't say if Sweden going for the Euro is good or bad for Sweden, and there's a paradox in asking people about it, because if the SEK is weak then support goes up, but it's a bad time to join because of the low value, but if the SEK is strong then support goes down, although we'd be in a much position to join.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

The government has to balance the budget anyway.

This is neoliberal dogma with bad consequences for the majority. While there are plenty of economists who subscribe to it, there are plenty others who don't. Economics isn't a well proven science and as a result there are giant gaps filled with unproven hypotheses. While the primacy of budget balancing has been promoted by neoliberal economists since the 70s, evidence has been piling up against it for a while.

Given that new money is created every time a private bank gives out a loan, the only real difference between the government having the ability to create new money or not is the difference between whether the government has to seek private capital (and pay interest on it) or not. Therefore removing the ability to print your own currency is simply shifting public policy power to private capital. Most people don't have enough private capital to participate, therefore it's an increase in the political power of a minority upper class including international actors. One result of this is private capital gaining the power to force austerity by not lending money in need, then profiting from that policy by buying up government services and operating them for profit, typically as monopolies. E.g. healthcare, power, water utilities. The demand for profit means price increases which means inflation.

Therefore a responsible government should retain the ability to create its own currency, create it and destroy it by targeting metrics such as inflation and employment, not budget balances.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

By your theory monopolies should be much more common in countries that are already part of the Euro

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There are many other variables that affect monopoly density which don't sit frozen. It's why this conclusion doesn't follow from what I said, unless you have a magic wand that can fix them in multiple economies.

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