Eurozone Crisis Research Paper

Greece and the Eurozone Crisis The current crisis in Europe was caused by many factors, one of the biggest being the crisis in the United States in 2008 transmitting over into other parts of the world, such as Europe. Perhaps the single most influential factor to start this crisis began when Europe tried to become more like the United States in its way of being unified with a single currency. In Europe, each country’s economy is very different. The price of Euros appropriate for each country varies, but the European Union had to make it consistent across the board. This causes problems for richer and more developed countries, such as Germany, as well as poorer and less developed economies, such as Greece. Initially, joining the Euro was great because people trusted in investing their money in their country, but their economy was still poorer and less developed than others. Greece is still in a terrible place with unemployment rates still soaring in the mid- twentieth percentile (Focus Economics, 2015). This being said, people of authority as well as citizens in Greece and other countries involved in the Euro crisis are contemplating the worst and best cases. From the perspective of a Greek citizen, I will explain the best and worst case scenarios, as the best course of action. Due to the major crisis in Greece, the Greek citizens are struggling on a daily basis. …show more content…
The only help that has been offered has come in a bailout package from the EU and International Monetary Fund which was mostly distributed to banks and other big companies that owed money. This did not help any of the Greek citizens. Some examples of the everyday struggles citizens go through include only being able to take out about $50 worth of Euros per day because a lot of their ATMs are running out of cash, credit cards have to be used because of the lack of money in the bank which isn’t being paid back, factories and stores have shut down, and more and more people are being forced to lose their jobs (Jovanovic, 2015). Due to these issues, citizens and governments officials have been considering ways to help fix this problem. As a Greek citizen, I would want to do anything to get out of this situation and be able to economically be stable again. I would want the solution that is going to best give me more job opportunities. Some of the options Greece has at this point is to stay the way it is, cut their social spending like other European countries want, reduce its deficits by raising taxes like Greece wants, back off and write off debt or leave the European Union all together (O’Brien, 2015). I think the worst case scenario and biggest fear that could happen for the typical Greek citizen would be Greece raising their taxes. Greece has already deflated their economy, and raising taxes on citizens that can’t even afford to pay these taxes would do nothing to help. Yes, from a government standpoint it would keep their money circulating within the country, but it would make the citizens on an overall basis even poorer and economically challenged. This “solution” wouldn’t do anything to actually pull Greece out of the crisis. As a citizen, I would be very upset to pay more taxes knowing it won’t be in the