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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (10028)	12/17/2001 11:50:42 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Respond to of 23908

Re: I think the conversion to the Euro on Jan. 1 will be a fiasco. I disagree. All in all, I think it'll be a smooth transition... If anything, the fiasco looms over the macroeconomic picture of the whole Eurozone. The economic health of several European blue chips becomes really alarming. Bankruptcies and/or wholesale layoffs occur on a daily basis. Then there's the high-tech issue and Europe's challenge to catch up with the US and Asia. Remember that in 1997/1998, Europeans were blissfully counting on their brand new high-tech bourses (Easdaq, Neue Markt, Nouveau Marche, etc) to kickstart a whole breed of Silicon-Valley startups. They hoped that if they put the financial cart before the corporate horse, a whole new landscape of successful high-tech ventures would be brought to life.... But today, after the financial bubble fizzled, we're left with the ghosts of Lernout&Hauspie, Infonie, Boo.com, etc. In the US, on the other hand, the situation is healthier: sure, Nasdaq's market caps have collapsed by 50% on average BUT the underlying high-tech "veterans" are still there. The Microsofts, Oracles, Sun Micros, AOLs,... have not vanished! Europe, however, is back to square one. Next, there's the Chinese factor: in the next six months, our textile industry as well as our appliances, toys,... industries will feel the heat. Oh, did I mention tourism?? How many US/Japanese tourists will travel to Europe after 911? BTW, did you notice the irony of Europe's breakthroughs in aviation? 30 years ago, France and Britain came up with Concorde and... Bang! the oil shocks just killed it... Today, I mean up until August 2001, EADS's Airbus A380 looked like the best aircraft brainstorm ever and then.... came Sept. 11th. A bleak outlook indeed.