Dear Mrs. Merkel we’d like to say, “It is calculable!”

Man, if she keeps this up, Mr. Sarkozy is in danger of losing his top spot as the Eurozone leader most prone to bouts of hyperbole.

BERLIN, May 19 (Reuters) – The euro is in danger, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a speech to parliament on Wednesday.

“Every one of us here can feel that the current crisis of the euro is the greatest challenge that Europe has faced for decades, since the signing of the Treaty of Rome,” she said. “This challenge is existential. And we have to rise to it.

“I’ll boil it down to its core: The euro is the foundation for growth and prosperity, along with the common market — also for Germany. The euro is in danger.

“If we don’t deal with this danger, then the consequences for us in Europe are incalcuable.”

We beg to differ, Mrs. Merkel; the euro is the source of the problem, not the solution. It is not the moniker of “growth and prosperity” as you say. No doubt, it was a good thing for German industrialists, so speaking to your power base, you may be correct. But German taxpayers aren’t very pleased, paying for the sovereign bankruptcies the euro has wrought in its wake.

And if you need some help with the calculations, here are some numbers that were used to form the original monetary dis-union:

These values were from December 31, 1998:

- 13.7603 Austrian Schilling (ATS)
- 40.3399 Belgian Franc (BEF)
- 2.20371 Dutch Guilder (NLG)
- 5.94573 Finnish Markka (FIM)
-6.55957 French Franc (FRF)
- 1.95583 German Mark (DEM)
- 340.750 Greek Drachma (GRD)
- 0.787564 Irish Punt (IEP)
- 1936.27 Italian Lira (ITL)
- 40.3399 Luxembourg Franc (LUF)
- 200.482 Portuguese Escudo (PTE)
- 166.386 Spanish Peseta (ESP)

It really boils down to which camp you are in:

A. If you like big government and centralized socialists power and believe it can make better decisions about many aspects of your life than you can, then you should root for the European Monetary Union to succeed.

B. If dislike big government and are sick and tired of educated derelicts from so-called “top institutions of learning” who have no grasp on how the real world works telling you what is best for you, and taxing your *&^ off to achieve that, then you should be standing and cheering for the demise of the Euro.

You know which camp I’m in. And so far, my camp is winning Mrs. Merkel despite your attempts at obfuscation of the facts, and punishment of those eeeevillllll speculators.

Euro-USD Weekly: It is a beautiful thing!

There is no doubt the euro is oversold on every technical measure imaginable. And a bounce is a very real possibility. But remember when the British pound started tumbling against the US dollar back in July of 2008? Well, if you don’t remember, here is the chart:

GBPUSD Weekly: The pound plunged about 32.5% from its lofty perch at around 2.01 against the US dollar.

Our Members were fortunate enough to catch a good piece of that move. But what was interesting was that every surge down led to yet another comment from some technical analysis expert with a charting package to yell, “The British pound is oversold.” I think this yelling started in earnest when the pound reached around 1.90, on its way down to its credit crunch low of 1.35. Thus, every time you stepped in to buy the “oversold” pound you were hammered mercilessly.

Interestingly, if the Euro-USD were to fall by the same amount in this move—32.5%–from the 1.50-level, that takes it to around 1.02; dangerously close to our call of going to par! That’s called having fun with math.

The point is this: Fundamentals trump technical analysis in a big way at certain points in a currency move.

And I hope the point will come clear soon to Mrs. Merkel: You can run for a while with an artificial currency system and enrich entrenched interests, but sooner or later the market will come back to bite you if there is no solid ground to form a common currency in the first place.

Game isn’t over yet, but the fat lady is warming up her voice.

Jack Crooks
Black Swan Capital
www.blackswantrading.com

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